[Delphinus]

Hi Sean,

If an item is made in Canada or the U.S. (or Mexico) then it falls under NAFTA and there won't be duty. There WILL be GST, and brokerage fees. How much you pay on brokerage depends on who brokers the items across customs and that is the decision of the carrier. Some places do it themselves (Canada/US Post, UPS) and some places outsource it to places like Peace Bridge. UPS charges a flat rate of $30 or $50 which kinda sucks if the item you buy is less than $100. Post is about $5 or $10, and Peace Bridge ... hmmm it has been many years since I ever had to pay an invoice to them but I remember it was like $50 or so.

Now here is the kicker. Nikon is a Japanese company. That means that they were imported into the U.S. and to buy it from the U.S. means you're re-exporting it again and now importing it into Canada. My advice is .... don't bother. It's already imported into Canada from somewhere else. You should be able to find just as good a deal on a camera here in Canada. Now admittedly, I haven't looked at this in a while, but about a year ago I looked into getting a Nikon 990. The prices I found online in the U.S., once the Canadian dollar exchange rate was taken into account .... were not any better than going through a local dealer or at least a Canadian online supplier. That was a real eye opener for me. Maybe things are different because cameras are basically consumer electronics and consumer electronics are basically commodoties.

Plus there is the issue of warrantees, if you MO through the U.S. you may get some kind of manufacturers warrantee but dollars to donuts you will have to mail your item to some service depot which means you're out of a camera for several weeks if something were to go wrong with it. It is a bit of a gamble.

Just my $0.02 ... I've MO'd a lot of stuff from the U.S. and basically it comes down to ... unless it's a huge, huge savings it's just not worth it. Savings on paper tends to work out into not a lot of savings in reality once all is said and done.

Like Jonathan pointed out there are exceptions so it does pay to check into things from time to time ... but if it were me I wouldn't order a camera from the U.S. if there was a Canadian supplier for the item I was looking for, and the price difference was not that much.