Find the Cheapest Way to Ship in Canada

Whether you are managing an online business or just sending out personal gifts, shipping costs will always be a factor. Canada has the benefit of having several major carriers that operate within this beautiful country. You can ship your packages through FedEx, UPS, CanadaPost, Purolator, Canpar, Loomis, DHL, Dicom, and many more.

Comparing shipping costs to find the cheapest shipping with all these couriers can quickly become extremely time-consuming. Fortunately, Secureship has made it easy to compare shipping prices with all these companies allowing you to find the cheapest way to ship your packages in Canada every time.

There are several factors that affect the price of shipping within Canada. Some of these items are within your control to adjust and others are not.

The heavier your box, the higher the cost of shipping. Not much you can do here.

The bigger the box, the higher the costs. This is somewhat within your control but a lot of times that extra size is needed to securely package your items being shipped.

A big factor in shipping is the travelling distance. The further the distance a package has to travel, the more it costs the courier company in fuel and other operating costs. Prices of shipping are therefore adjusted to compensate for this.

For addresses that are hard to get to - think cottages, small remote towns, or locations only accessible drivable during certain times of the year - the carrier will often charge an extended area surcharge or even a super-extended area surcharge for delivery of your package. There's not much that can be done here to avoid this cost unless you can convince the recipient to have the package picked up at another location such as the carrier's depot or perhaps their place of work.

Every company will have different costs to ship the same package between the same two points. The operating costs for some is more than other due to the lack of presence or established network within certain areas of the country. For others, they prefer to service those areas less. Shopping around for price is a great way to get the cost of shipping down.

The more urgent or faster the package needs to arrive, the more expensive it will be to have the package delivered.

Just about every carrier charges a residential fee. The reason being that it takes longer for these types of deliveries to happen and often, packages have to be re-attempted several times or held at the depot because the person isn't home during the day. Having the package delivered to the individuals work address - not a home-business - can help you eliminate this extra fee. You can also request that the carrier hold the package for pickup - another excellent way to avoid this charge.

Additional handling fees are partially avoidable. The carriers tend to charge this fee for any item that is not encased within a cardboard box. That could be luggage, wooden crates, duffel bags, plastic bins, etc. Transferring these items to a box not only eliminates this cost, it stands less chance of being lost or damaged in transit and can be insured - provided the contents can be insured.

If however, the package is over a certain weight or size, the carrier may charge this fee regardless.

If there is a problem with the address and an address correction needs to occur, your shipment will be charged an extra fee for the correction. Some charge by package, some charge by shipment so the cost can get really jump quickly. Worse, if you are shipping to a postal box or the address cannot be resolved, the carrier can return the shipment back to you at your own cost. However, the package is over a certain weight or size, the carrier may charge this fee regardless.

Normally, your items are automatically insured $100 in the event of loss or damage. Anything more and you'll pay a premium for this coverage - sometimes as high as $5.00 per additional $100 of coverage. Of course, not everything is insurable so check our blog article on the fine print of carrier insurance..

In addition to the cost of the shipment, packages are charged an additional fuel surcharge to cover the current cost of gas. Some companies adjust for the cost of fuel weekly, others monthly. There's not much you can do here other than look to see what the fuel price will be coming up and delay sending off your shipment. The savings are marginal on this so it's not a practical approach.

Just like at Costco or Walmart, the bigger your buying power, the cheaper the cost to purchase the same item. The same applies to shipping - the more you ship with a certain carrier, the cheaper the cost of shipping becomes.

Of course, this is all good and well if you ship a lot - think +$100,000 - but if you don't have this volume, you won't get any good volume discounts. That's where we can help