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CANADIAN Customers RAM purchases

R

RafMac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 25, 2007
191
8
Ontario
I find RAM prices are so much cheaper at US online stores than Canadian stores. Especially today with our dollar at par.

Did you pay DUTY on memory purchase from US online store?

I find it is cheap to buy RAM from OWC 4GB PC5300 DDR2 667MHz DIMM Upgrade Kit $199.00USD + Shipping $20.40USD. Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty.

Canadian Online stores can't beat that anywhere.
Does anyone know a Canadian store that beats that price?
 
RafMac said:
I find RAM prices are so much cheaper at US online stores than Canadian stores. Especially today with our dollar at par.

Did you pay DUTY on memory purchase from US online store?

I find it is cheap to buy RAM from OWC 4GB PC5300 DDR2 667MHz DIMM Upgrade Kit $199.00USD + Shipping $20.40USD. Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty.

Canadian Online stores can't beat that anywhere.
Does anyone know a Canadian store that beats that price?
Click to expand...

You will pay duty AND brokerage fees (usually higher than duty unless included in more expensive air shipping) AND applicable taxes. I doubt you will find such a low price here but email David Fredette from the following website

http://www.visioninfo.qc.ca/spip.php?article30

and give him the OWC item number (he sells everything from their catalog even though it doesn't show on his website) and he will give you a quote (he operates from Canada, no surprise duty or brokerage fees).
 
RafMac said:
I find it is cheap to buy RAM from OWC 4GB PC5300 DDR2 667MHz DIMM Upgrade Kit $199.00USD + Shipping $20.40USD. Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty.
Click to expand...
What RAM is this you are looking at? It's not the FB-DIMMs for the MacPro, those are US$359

You must mean the 2 x 2Gb kit of SO-DIMMs at $199

At the border there is no duty on RAM, but there is brokerage which can be anywhere from $5 through the mail and up to $40+ if they ship by UPS. You will also pay both GST and provincial tax, plus tax on the brokerage.

Also, the advance replacement warranty isn't free shipping, you would have to pay shipping and border clearance on warranty replacement/exchange.

Don't forget that even if the official exchange rate is .9995, your charge card company will charge between 4% and 4,5% on foreign exchange, so that's another $8 - $9.
 
I purchased a 4 GB kit for my Macbook Pro from www.canadaram.com.

I now have a new iMac and need to get it up to 4 GB

I will purchase again from the above web-site in Canada? Why?

1. They actually know what they are selling and will respond to technical e-mails even before you purchase RAM. These people know there stuff.

2. Great Service with competitive pricing and very reasonable shipping costs.

3. The warranty...for a warranty replacement, I don't have to monkey around with any cross-border shipping.

When it is all said and done...I will ahve probably have paid about 50.00 to 60.00 more than a U.S. etailer, but for the above reasons...definately worth it...no question!
 
I used Canadaram.com for my 2x2GB RAM for my new iMac and couldn't be happier. The price was much cheaper than Apple's own RAM and I emailed some questions prior to my purchase and received prompt and satisfactory answers. Once I made my purchase the RAM arrived quickly and without any fuss. It's working well and my iMac is very happy having a full belly!

Mick
 
I was about to buy two 1GB sticks from www.crucial.com for my new MacBook. I can get the pair for $87, which is way better than what I was going to pay at Staples, which was $86 a piece!
Crucial charges $15 shipping to Canada, plus GST and PST.
Canadaram.com is selling 2GB for $124 right now.
My only concern about buying from Crucial is the brokerage fee, as I have no idea what that will be. I hear UPS charges something like $50. Anyone know this for sure?
 
Madmic23 said:
I was about to buy two 1GB sticks MacBook --
Crucial charges $15 shipping to Canada, plus GST and PST.
My only concern about buying from Crucial is the brokerage fee
Click to expand...

UPS charges brokerage based on the dollar amount. Their brokerage is a minimum $16, going up to around $30 for packages over a certain amount (Can't remember if the amount is $50 or something like that) . They can also charge a $5 or $7 "advancement fee" which is their charge for sending the PST and GST to the government before you pay it. There is tax on the brokerage as well. You can find the rates, but you have to dig hard at the UPS.ca website to find the scedule. FedEx is similar, they make it very very hard to discover what the international charges will be.

Brokerage rates will vary with different couriers.

US sellers generally don't like to send by US Mail, because it is less reliable and hard to track (CanadaPost actually does quite a bit better on registered and trackable products than the USPS does)

Dont forget that even if the Canadian dollar is at 99.7 cents US, your charge card will add their service charges on foreign exchange, and you'll pay 4 - 4.5% more.
 
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