Comment · Tue, February 6, 2024 · ND Owner
$3780 BlackFriday Order “Forgot” to be Sent - Support No Longer Responding
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post in this thread.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
To start, I want to say sorry for the delay. Waiting this long shouldn't happen. It's a weird series of events that is the first time we have had to deal with, so we are figuring it out for the first time as well. I apologize.
That being said, we didn't "forget" to ship anything out. You ordered on the Sunday of Black Friday weekend, and your order went out first thing on Monday, which is insane for how large of an order it was. The fact that my team could pick, pack, and ship an order that large, along with thousands of others over a huge sale weekend, is pretty unheard of. Characterizing the issue as us forgetting to ship your order is not fair. What really happened is that this is a massive order to Canada, and Asendia apparently has a limit of $2,499 for shipments. The issue is that this limit was never relayed to us, so my team had no idea you couldn't ship orders $2,500 and up through that service. The other issue is that Asendia didn't think to even notify us of the issue at all once it happened. The package went to their facility and just sat, being put aside for being over the limit. However, they didn't reach out to us stating that, or at least send the package back to us. It just sat there with no notification. The first time we knew there was an issue was when you wrote us on January 2nd. That's when we reached out to Asendia, and they told us it was on hold because it was over the maximum value. I agree it is ridiculous they just sat there with it without informing either you or us. These shipping companies are batshit stupid sometimes, and we are just as frustrated as customers are with them. The bulk of the delay is just from Asendia not notifying anyone of an issue. We will no longer be shipping large orders via Asendia.
When my team alerted me to the issue in January, I told them to just reship to you via DHL Express so it would get to you quickly, and we would just deal with Asendia ourselves in the background. They confirmed with you, and then reshipped your order. Your reship order got to Canada on January 10th. However, now the issue is that Canadian customs is assuming you are a reseller, not a consumer, because of the large order size. To be fair, it's a large order with a bunch of units of products. I can see why they might think that. Not very many people are making personal orders for almost $4,000 at a time. I know you have been yelling at my support team saying "a simple order" shouldn't have this many issues, but international orders for almost $4,000 in supplements are not simple. This is especially true in Canada, as their laws are set up to define "personal use" as up to a 90 day supply. Your order contains over 2 years worth of doses of some products, which is why Canadian customs and Health Canada are looking at this like a distributor/business order.
Health Canada takes the following factors into consideration in determining whether the import is for a personal use (list is not exhaustive).
quantity (health products)
no more than a 90-day supply or a single course of treatment, whichever is less, based on the product's directions for use
Importation of health products exceeding the personal importation limit of 90-days may be considered a commercial import. For animals, the quantity is based on the number of animals being treated. For medical devices, the quantity of units imported may be taken into consideration.
Splitting the order up doesn't help, either.
If you bring the same health products into Canada in multiple shipments and the total amount exceeds a 90-day supply over a 90-day period, you may be considered a commercial importer.
Some people think this just applies to drug, but it applied to natural health supplements as well.
https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publications/dm-md/d19/d19-9-1-eng.html
Personal use importation of non-prescription drugs, natural health products, and veterinary health products
50. Residents, non-residents and visitors to Canada can import for their own use or for a person or a companion animal under that individual's care, a single course of treatment or up to a 90-day supply of veterinary health products, natural health products and non-prescription drugs every 90 days. The medication must be packaged in hospital, pharmacy dispensing or retail packaging, or have the original label affixed to it clearly indicating what the product is and what it contains and no indication of sale in Canada, subject to inspector discretion for personal quantity.
This is what is happening. Your government thinks you are a commercial importer because of the volume of stuff you are importing. They contacted you for responses, which you forwarded to us. However, we cannot respond to your government on your behalf. That's what the power of attorney part from DHL was about. My support team told you to fill out the paperwork so that DHL could clear it, but leave the business information blank, because you are not a business. We also contacted our DHL rep, Jacob, who looped in his manager to help. You then were CCing our support email on your correspondence with DHL, but there was nothing our team needed to add. We were not ignoring anything, and had multiple emails and calls with Jacob to ensure things were moving along. The only recent thing that popped up was that DHL was asking for a detailed ingredient list for all products. To be clear, we include all required documentation on every shipment. They had a full itemized detailed commercial invoice as required. They then asked for us to make a list of all ingredients in every product, like other ingredients, which is not something standard any customs asks for. They have the product labels, so they already have that anyway. However, we went ahead and manually made a detailed list of ingredients for every product in the shipment to appease their request anyway, which has now been sent, and Jacob confirmed receipt. Our team did not "forget" to ship or send anything, and at no time were we not responding to things we needed to. I realize it is frustrating jumping through hoops, but this is because Canadian customs started treating you as a commercial importer, because of the large number of items and value of the order. There is nothing we can do about that, though. It's Canadian law. Perhaps we should limit the order values we will allow Canadians to order. However, then customers try to just place multiple smaller orders. The issue is that then Canadian customs thinks you are trying to trick them, and get around their rules, which causes its own problems. I wish we had more control over Canadian customs clearance, but we don't. The only way around it would be for us to import into Canada as a business. However, that would require us to get certified with Health Canada, and then have Canadian-specific labels that have English and French on them. We have considered it, but that is a big task. We would also have to pay import duties and charge VAT on all the sales, but that's the only other option. The 90 day supply limit is the issue with orders like yours to Canada.