Is there any sort of help for small businesses when it comes to paying shipping or duty on orders from the US?

Question

A friend of mine has recently opened up a candy store! How exciting! However, she is finding it really hard to branch out and get nostalgic candy, gross candy (eye balls, bugs etc, the kind little boys love!) and even halloween, christmas, wedding, etc. candy. We can't seem to find many canadian suppliers that carry the neat kinds of candy, and to order it from the US, the shipping is very expensive. We were thinking of taking a trip down to the US and stocking up, but we don't know the rules on duty when it comes to candy, and small businesses. Is there any help?

Answer 1

Try the Canada Border Services Agency page for importing by small- to medium-sided enterprises at http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/sme-pme/i-gui...

Good luck. We import from the States to Ontario a lot and just wait for the duty invoice to come from the freight company. It's probably actually fairly straight-forward: you declare the type and value of the goods, and they tell you what to pay.