Why Is Shipping to the U.S. So Expensive?

I know. The shipping prices are ridiculous.

Believe me, I see the same prices you do, and keeping shipping affordable has become one of the biggest challenges of running CanKeg.

CanKeg is a one-man business in Calgary, Canada. I use a Shopify shipping service called ClickShip that compares rates from different couriers and gives customers the best options it can find.

For years, it worked pretty well. I could ship most orders to the U.S. for around $10–$20, and they would usually arrive in about three days. I built a big part of this business around being able to do that.

Unfortunately, cross-border shipping has changed dramatically.

The price you see at checkout is calculated by the shipping system based on the size, weight and destination of your order. I don't personally decide that it should cost $25, $35 or $50 to ship a box.

And sometimes the price I'm charged after the shipment is processed is actually higher than what you paid at checkout.

When that happens, I pay the difference.

I've shipped plenty of orders where most of my profit disappeared into shipping. I've even had orders where I lost money.

Then came the tariffs.

The ongoing Canada–U.S. trade dispute has made things considerably worse. New tariffs of as much as 50% now apply to certain Canadian products entering the United States, and the rules have changed repeatedly.

I've spent countless hours going through HS tariff classifications, customs paperwork and country-of-origin requirements to make sure every CanKeg product is classified correctly and receives whatever tariff treatment it legally qualifies for.

Even after doing that, I've had packages get hit with unexpected charges at the border.

At that point I have an unhappy customer whose order is sitting in customs, so more often than I care to admit, I eat the cost.

For a huge corporation, an unexpected $20 or $50 charge on an order might be an accounting nuisance.

For a one-man business, it can wipe out the entire profit from the sale.

So I'm fixing it.

The obvious long-term solution is to stop shipping every American order across the Canadian border individually.

I've now established a U.S. company and completed the paperwork required to operate in the United States. My next step is moving inventory into the U.S. so American customers can eventually order CanKeg products domestically.

That should mean:

• Lower and more predictable shipping prices

• Faster delivery

• No surprise cross-border charges on individual orders

• And considerably less swearing from the guy packing your CanKeg order in Calgary

I'm working on it.

In the meantime, if you see an outrageous shipping price at checkout, please know that I see it too. I'm not trying to make money on shipping, and I'm constantly looking for better ways to get these products to you.

If you've supported CanKeg despite all of this, thank you.

It genuinely means a lot to a very small Canadian business caught in the middle of a very big trade fight.

— Sean
CanKeg