Buying hardware from the US. (canadians)

[vm]

How do you guys go about doing that?

more often than not, prices in the US are way lower than in canada, even with the bad CDN dollar. but the problem are the insane custom fees you have to pay @ the border.

is there a way to avoid them?

when I buy from an individual i just tell him to mark it as a gift or something, but i can't do that with stores.
I've bought a few things from www.ncix.com , but for CPUs and Memory it's so much better to buy from the U.S...

any advice?

 

[vm]

bump

 

[sandorski]

If you live close to the border, get a US mailbox and have your stuff shipped there.

If you don't, then buy your stuff in Canada. After years of buying stuff, I've found the price differences to be less than a few percentage points, not enough to worry about. One thing to consider though, when prices drop(say after a date set by Intel or AMD), those new lower prices tend to appear earlier in the US then in Canada(this often applies to new product availability too, though sometimes that's reversed), so if you can wait a couple weeks the Canadian prices will become more equivalent.

 

[Dolemite76]

well... getting a us mail box (assuming it's a Post Office (P.O.) Box) doesn't alway work... i think FedEx and UPS don't deliver to PO Boxes (especially if you have to sign)... best way is to look for a reseller that does international sales... at least to canada... this can avoid some custom fees... or (assuming you live near the border) get a friend (or meet one) who lives US side to use thier home address to ship your goods and just smuggle 'em back into Canada... (aka don't declare them)... beats paying the custom fees... i live on the US/Mexico boarder (El Paso, Texas USA and Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico)... this is how my computer geek friends in Juarez Mexico get their hardware (we go to the same university)... they use my address and I sign for their packages they pick 'em up and cross'em over to Mexico (I do this for a nominal fee of an occasionally free lunch)... according to them... they don't pay any taxes or fees... works out great...