How much does it cost to courier from Canada to New Zealand?

How much does it cost to courier from Canada to New Zealand?

What sounds like a simple question is answered with ‘It depends on …’. The costs to courier from Canada to New Zealand include: the parcel’s weight and size; which courier and delivery service you select; and are you shipping it during the Christmas season? And there are other smaller yet contributing components that add to the cost of courier shipments.

This blog outlines how the major and minor factors affect shipping costs and what you might be able to do to mitigate them. As well, it introduces Secureship, a Canadian shipping broker whose bulk buying power with major carriers can save you up to half of your shipping costs.

Table of Contents

• Shipping’s Major Factors
• Other Cost Factors
• How Secureship Can Help You
• Conclusion

Shipping’s Major Factors

The foremost contributor to shipping to New Zealand is the country’s distance from us – more than 10,000 km from any major Canadian city. And these days, it can be shockingly expensive. Some money can be saved by sending goods via sea freight, but the arrival time could be extended from a week to several months. And there are other factors that also affect shipping costs.

Weight and size

Simply put, your shipping costs increase with a heavier parcel, and realistically that cannot be changed unless oversize charges are involved as we will learn later on.

The size of the parcel, however, also affects costs because of a calculation called billable weight. Couriers measure the dimensions of the parcel and divide it by either 139 or 5,000 depending if they used Imperial or metric measurements. When the result is compared to the actual weight, the bigger number is used for billing purposes. Think of billable weight this way: A large fluffy fleece would cost more to ship than a load of equally-weighted lead shot.

Couriers and their services

Which courier and service you select for your shipment can also have a big impact on the cost of shipping. For example, suppose you need to have a 5 kg parcel shipped by air from Toronto, ON to Auckland, New Zealand. Using Secureship’s pricing tool for this shipment, the four options below show how variable couriers and services can be.

Service	Description	Travel time	Courier’s price (CAD)	Price with Secureship’s discount (CAD)
UPS Express	Fastest	3.5 business days	$522	$242
UPS Expedited	Cheapest	6 business days	$468	$172
Purolator Express	Most expensive	4 business days	$564	$479
FedEx International Priority	Best known courier	4 business days	$531	$239

Other Cost Factors

There are other lesser factors that could increase the cost of your shipment – peak season shipping; oversized containers; Saturday services; insurance; and fuel surcharge.

Peak season

Peak shipping season lasts from about mid-November to mid-January because of Christmas. Volumes rise dramatically which spikes shipping costs and increases delivery times. Shipping before or after this time frame is the best advice we can offer, but if that is not possible, plan to ship your parcels early to ensure their timely delivery.

Oversized containers

If you were to ship an oversized container with UPS (heavier than 68 kg or longer than 2.74 m), expect a surcharge. As of June 2024, said container would incur a $1,100 extra fee, which could rise to $1,550 during peak season. One way to potentially mitigate this cost is to split an oversized container into smaller ones.

Saturday services

Saturday pick-ups or deliveries may incur an extra fee on a shipment. So, unless it is absolutely essential your business or recipient require Saturday services, avoiding this travel day is one way to reduce your costs.

Insurance

Parcel insurance is often taken out against lost or damaged shipments. Depending on the monetary value of your goods and your risk tolerance, you may decide to forego spending on insurance. However, if you do take out insurance, be sure to follow the dictates of the ISTA 3A packaging standards so that insurance is valid if you need to make a claim.

Fuel surcharge

Unfortunately, there is no evading the fuel surcharge. It is calculated as a percentage of the shipping cost, and can fluctuate with changing oil prices.

How Secureship Can Help You

As shown above, Secureship’s online and easy-to-use platform provides you with a range of couriers and services for your shipment. And most importantly, because of its bulk buying power with Purolator, UPS, and FedEx, it can offer you some very impressive cost savings.

But there is more. When using Secureship, the system automatically guides you through the required paperwork, allows you to arrange parcel pick-up at your office or home, and provides you with a bevy of shipping-related information.

Conclusion

The cost to courier from Canada to New Zealand cannot be answered simply. It depends on whether you ship goods by sea (slow and cheaper) or air (faster but more expensive), the weight of the parcel and its size – a smaller box with the same weight as a heavier one is likely to be less expensive. And then it depends on which courier you choose – couriers may charge different prices for essentially the same service. Other smaller costs may also increase your shipping fees – a premium during the Christmas season, oversized containers, shipping on a Saturday, buying parcel loss or damage insurance, and the automatic fuel surcharge. But do not despair, by using the Canadian broker Secureship to arrange your shipment’s courier, you could save up to 50% or more on a delivery.