I am required to collect sales tax on any order which is being shipped to an address
in New York state. The current sales tax rate is 7.75%.
Shipping
I can ship via FedEx, UPS, or the US Postal Service. The vast
majority of items are shipped via Priority Mail as that generally
results in the most expeditious delivery, but I will occasionally
use UPS as well, especially for heavier items. I usually do not
use FedEx simply because the nearest branch is an hour away, but
it is an option.
For shipments to Canada, I use the US Postal Service
so you can avoid UPS's outrageous "customs broker" fees. Because
my products are made in the USA, there is no duty owed when shipping
to Canada (due to NAFTA), but be aware that you might need to pay GST, HST
or PST, and if that is the case, there may be a $5-8 fee charged by
Canada Post in addition to the tax. More information about fees
which might be required when shipping into Canada can be found on
this
Canada Border Services Agency web page. Although I dislike
government taxes and fees as much as anyone, I hope you will
understand that I cannot put my entire business at risk by
mis-labeling an international package containing commercial goods as a
gift.
If you would like your order shipped faster than
the standard 3 day Priority or UPS ground shipments, or if you live
in a country other than the US or Canada, please
contact me
before you order and I'll give you a shipping quote.
The prices listed on the site do not include shipping. The shipping
is calculated automatically by the shopping cart. I have spent
some time tweaking the shipping rates in the cart to come as close to
the actual shipping charges as possible. I am definitely not out
to try and build profit into the shipping charges; the settings I
have arrived at allow me to more or less break even on shipping
costs. (For example, if the cost to ship a product to New York
is $6 and the cost to ship it to California is $12, the shipping
charge calculated by the cart will be around $9. This means
that sometimes I lose money on the shipping and sometimes
there is some extra. On balance, these cancel each other out.
Unfortunately the shopping cart isn't able to calculate the exact
shipping to a particular zip code so this is the most fair way I
can think of to handle this.)
Note: Due to the way the shopping cart calculates
the shipping charges, the lightest weight I can use for a product is 1lb.
This causes the shipping to be calculated correctly if you order just
one product which is less than 1lb, but if you order 2 or more, the
shipping costs get inflated. This only happens very rarely, however
if such is the case, I will correct the shipping costs prior to
charging your card, so that you are only paying as close to the actual shipping
costs as possible.
