I'm a US citizen who moved to Canada, and I was very spoiled by the free "priority mail" boxes, flat rate boxes, and 24 hr USPS kiosks. You will be, I'm sorry to say, very frustrated with the choices Canada Post offers. I have purchased the flat rate boxes from ebay (you can also get them at stores like Staples) but they are not free. They must be used with an ebay transaction and you can't just take the box to Canada Post and have them add the postage, you have to print it out beforehand. To be honest, it was so frustrating to do I haven't even used one of the 3 boxes I purchased yet. What I did was I (a) bought a scale that shows grams (how Canada Post weighs things) and I bought a tape measure! Then I bought boxes in bulk from a company online (they ended up costing me $1.07 each) so I could ship my items. Then I printed out the "USA "Small Packet" chart from Canada post and I just keep it handy as I list items on ebay. Canada Post has one major flaw (in my opinion) in that you cannot "track" a package unless you choose "expedited" mail and it's about double the cost of sending items air (1st class) or surface (ground = slow boat!). Ebay and Paypal will penalize you as a seller if you can't prove you shipped an item with a tracking #, and it's very frustrating because although the small packets come with up to $100 insurance, you have no way of knowing if they are stuck in customs, if they have arrived and your buyer is not telling the truth, etc. etc. Very few USA buyers are willing to pay for expedited mail that comes with the tracking #. So in summary, prepare for a time of transition in which you may want to pull your hair out. Even worse, it is oftentimes MORE expensive to ship from one province to another. I don't even have the chart for that, but it can actually be cheaper to send a parcel to the US than from Ontario to Vancouver. Good luck!
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