Label every price in Canadian dollars, set American shipping rates and delivery times from your own orders, say who handles returns and any charges at the door, and consider US pricing only once orders are steady.

An order you did not plan for

The order came in overnight: three notebooks and a box of cards, to an address in Oregon. Nobody had decided to sell to the United States. The checkout simply allowed it.

Many store setups accept orders from anywhere unless someone changes a setting, and plenty of stores chose one rate for everywhere outside Canada when they opened and never looked at it again.

With the lower Canadian dollar, Canadian prices look attractive to American shoppers, and search results do not stop at the border. The orders arrive whether or not the store is ready.

Then the emails start, asking which dollar the price was in, when the parcel will arrive, and why the card statement shows a different amount.

What an American shopper cannot tell

The first causes the most emails. A price of $24 looks like US dollars to an American, so a statement showing a converted amount, sometimes plus their bank's foreign transaction fee, looks like a mistake.

Say which dollar, everywhere

Put the currency beside every price: CAD or C$ on each product page, in the cart, and again on the order confirmation.

A line near the top of every page saying prices are in Canadian dollars helps too.

Add a sentence at checkout and on the shipping page explaining that the customer's bank converts the charge, so their statement will show US dollars at the bank's rate.

Currency converters that show an estimated US price are fine as a guide, provided they say plainly that the charge itself is in Canadian dollars.

Shipping that tells the truth

A single flat rate for everywhere outside Canada was usually a guess made years ago. Heavy orders can cost more to post than the rate collects, and light ones get overcharged.

Set rates for the United States by weight, with a tracked option and, if you offer one, a cheaper untracked option. Label which is which.

Show the cost before checkout as well, in the cart or on a shipping page linked from every product, so nobody meets it for the first time at the last step.

Untracked parcels across the border produce the hardest emails to answer, because there is nothing to look up when a customer asks where their order is.

Every parcel to the United States also needs a customs declaration describing the contents and their value. Build that paperwork into the packing routine.

Delivery times from your own orders

Shipping companies publish their best cases. Customers remember the number you showed them.

Use your own past orders to give a range in business days for American addresses, and say when the clock starts: from shipping, not from ordering, if you pack twice a week.

Put the range on the shipping page and near the add to cart button, where people decide, not only in the confirmation email.

A worked example

A stationery store on a neighbourhood shopping street also sells online: notebooks, writing paper, cards and wrapping paper, much of it from small Canadian and European makers.

American orders began arriving last year, mostly from people who had found a particular notebook nowhere else. The checkout charged one flat rate for everywhere outside Canada, set when the store opened.

Notebooks are heavy, so larger American orders cost more to post than the rate collected. Prices showed a dollar sign and nothing else, and several customers wrote asking about the amounts on their statements.

The store added CAD beside every price, set American rates by weight with tracked and untracked options, and published delivery ranges taken from its own orders.

The old rate for everywhere else was removed, so orders from countries the store had never meant to serve no longer arrive by accident.

Notebook pages now give page sizes in inches beside the A5 and A4 labels, which mean little to most American buyers.

A short page called shipping to the United States, linked from the cart, answers the questions that used to arrive by email.

Returns and charges at the door

Sending a parcel back across the border can cost as much as the item. Decide in advance what happens: a refund without a return for low-value items, store credit, or return postage paid by the customer.

Say who pays, and whether the original shipping is refunded, on a returns page American customers can find before ordering.

Many small parcels arrive with nothing to pay on delivery, but if a shipping method can bring import or brokerage charges, say so and say who covers them.

Check your tax settings too. Canadian sales taxes generally do not apply to goods shipped out of the country, so ask your accountant whether the checkout is adding them to American orders.

When separate US pricing makes sense

Charging in US dollars feels familiar to American shoppers and removes the conversion from their statements. It also hands the exchange risk to you, and payment providers charge for converting.

It is worth considering once American orders are a steady part of the business, and when your store platform handles two currencies properly rather than through a converter.

Until then, clearly labelled Canadian prices are honest, simple and easy to maintain.

The counter-case

A store that gets one American order a season may only need the currency labels and an honest shipping rate.

Some products cross the border badly: food, liquids, plants, batteries and very heavy items all bring rules, costs or both. For those, shipping only within Canada, and saying so plainly, is a reasonable choice.

What does not work is letting the checkout decide by default. Choose where you ship, and tell American customers what to expect before they pay.

This month

  1. Check which countries your checkout accepts.
  2. Label every price in Canadian dollars.
  3. Set American shipping rates by weight.
  4. Publish delivery ranges from your own orders.
  5. Write the returns rule for American customers.
  6. Add inches and pounds beside metric sizes.
  7. Ask your accountant about tax on exports.

Step one comes first because the checkout may already be selling to places you never meant to serve, at a rate nobody has checked since the store opened.

Giving American shoppers measurements they can picture is part of product pages without dimensions.

Frequently asked questions

Should my store show which currency prices are in?

Yes. Put CAD or C$ beside every price, in the cart and on the confirmation, so American shoppers do not assume US dollars and then question the converted charge.

How should I set shipping to the United States?

By weight, with a tracked option and a clearly labelled untracked one if you offer it, rather than one flat rate for everywhere outside Canada.

What delivery time should I show?

A range in business days taken from your own past orders to American addresses, shown near the add to cart button and on the shipping page.

How should returns from the United States work?

Decide the rule in advance: a refund without a return for low-value items, store credit, or return postage paid by the customer. Publish it where shoppers see it before ordering.

Do I charge Canadian sales tax on US orders?

Canadian sales taxes generally do not apply to goods shipped out of the country. Ask your accountant to confirm that your checkout is set up correctly.

When should I price in US dollars?

Once American orders are steady and your platform handles two currencies properly. Until then, clearly labelled Canadian prices are simpler and leave you no exchange risk to carry.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Orders arriving from across the border?

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