Defender's indifference to Canadians

Sailbaum · Jun 25, 2013

[/QUOTE]

Here is another company I have dealt with in the past. They ship fast so expect to pay for shipping. http://www.marineoutfitters.ca/index.cfm?page=home
.[/QUOTE]

Plus 1 for Marine Outfitters. I am in US and they had a part I needed and couldn't find elsewhere. Very efficient. Prices overall seemed competitive.

I have had good luck with Defender as well.

Erieau · Jun 25, 2013

Pride Marine / Marineexpe Outfitters is great too, as noted. Binnacle is pretty expensive, but has it all.

finding41 · Jun 25, 2013

Scott B said:
Cross border is always tricky. Unfortunately we get screwed up here by inflated prices, which makes it very tempting to order from the south. You always need to check on shipping policies, costs and methods and how a supplier deals with partial orders. Sometimes duty, brokerage fees etc. etc. makes it not worthwhile to ship across the border.

I always ask for things to be sent USPS form the states or the regular postal system from any other country. This because I hate paying the brokerage fees and extra duty. (Google UPS class action) It's robbery what they charge!
I also work for Canada Post. I know that things are handled properly on our end. Sure you get charged GST once in a while but there is only a $5 handling fee. And you can request a refund! (Yes! Read the back of the yellow edged sheet and it shows you how to appeal the taxes! It cost you a stamp and most times you get your $ back.) I show every one of my customers that.

Phil Herring · Jun 25, 2013

Just came here to say this is nonsense. I'm on vacation and I don't have a lot of time to go into detail, but...

- Passwords would be available to anyone. It is difficult to know who is Canadian when establishing a login so I very much doubt that Defender discriminates on that criteria.

- Shipping costs triple to Canada what it does within the US so of _course_ Defender isn't going to split shipments, at least, not without an additional shipping fee. No one does that.

- Yes, they're going to hold the order until the shipment is complete. See above. Indifference? I suspect that's your perception because they're not willing to lose money on your order.

I'm sure we'll hear from Stephen who can explain the details but I think these are the realities of doing business, not any indifference on Defender's part.

Randylb · Jun 25, 2013

I have used Defender with great success. I normally use Binnacle, the best service of anyplace I have ordered online by far. I have also used Pride Marine and they too are quite good.

I use only USPS if shipping to Canada. I have had unpleasant and terribly expensive experience with all couriers, excessive shipping and unnecessary brokerage fees you do not get with regular mail. I had a small part shipped from the original Sailnet store that cost four times the price in shipping and brokerage fees using UPS.

If you are within driving distance of the border it often pays to have large orders shipped to a UPS store. The shipping costs are usually a fraction of shipping to Canada and you can take advantage of stores that offer free shipping within the continental U.S. The charge by the UPS store for up to 40 lbs is $10.00 and goes up in $5.00 increments. You simply pick it up at the store and declare it yourself on your return.

Bob 04 H260 · Jun 26, 2013

I live in Canada and over the years have purchased a lot of product from Defender. I always have it shipped to a US receiver a one hour drive from my house. Much cheaper than dealing with UPS or Fedex fees.

With Defender there does seem to be a problem for a Canadian creating an account as it is no longer a USA account but "international" and I have never been able to login and pay for an order on line. My solution is to get my cart full and then call Defender to place the order. The agent finds my account instantly and already has my shipping & billing information so a quick, easy transaction. Each time I've placed an order the staff have been fantastic, very helpful, found discontinued items or even non-stocked items, very polite clear communications with call backs and emails. They have even been able to ship parts to a marina as we were in transit so the boat and the parts arrived at the same time.

Shipping has always been fair priced, and fast. Partial orders were shipped right away if that was what I needed and back ordered items followed later. This spring with the boat in Florida some items we ordered arrived the following afternoon !

With respect to Canada Post I find most US companies I have ordered from do not use the US postal service. On the occasions where this was an option I used it and it worked well. Thanks for the tip on refunds !

A Canadian chandlery not far from my house that does a lot of on-line sales is http://www.thechandleryonline.com/ they will match US on line prices. Also honest, very good to deal with.

We were in the Keys and bought a Raymarine ST40 wind instrument. It died about 6 months later and by that time the boat was back in Canada. The Canadian importer/distributor/representative for Raymarine would not honor the "international" warranty because "it was not one of his". Raymarine USA was very good about it and did the repair for us but a hassle dealing with customs in a situation like this. So I do not buy anything from Raymarine Canada only buy it in the USA from now on.

Bob

kenn · Jun 26, 2013

finding41 said:
I always ask for things to be sent USPS from the states or the regular postal system from any other country. This because I hate paying the brokerage fees and extra duty. (Google UPS class action) It's robbery what they charge!

Me too. It seems that the private companies love shippers but hate the international recipients, judging by the brokerage charges.

In my windsurfing days, I ordered a mast and sail from a US store. It was packed as two pieces, picked up at the same time, delivered at the same time... they charged me two brokerage fees. Nice work UPS.

Hey SBO store, what's your experience dealing with Canadian customers?

Scott B · Jun 26, 2013

kenn said:
Hey SBO store, what's your experience dealing with Canadian customers?

I've bought several things thru SBO. Mostly ship USPS and I've only had to pay minimal if any duty and no "brokerage fees"

Just had a Seatalk cable shipped up and had no duty or fees. Most items take a few days to a week, depending on how long it takes to clear customs.

Of course the Customer Service at SBO is second to none

Maine Sail · Jun 27, 2013

DinoKanuck said:
bob, Scott and kenn

All good advice and I too have great www.Defender.com experiences so was quite surprised when all 3 employees blew me off when I expressed the view that i deserved some consideration since they were at fault for not telling me the order was being held.

Snap, I mean there was serious "need it now stuff" in the $300 order and it was still sitting 5 days later when I called about the tracking link nor working. All this because of 2 foam emergency plugs?

Expressing, in a polite way, displeasure over that kind of error, and it was an error sinceit was counter to their policy did not merit my order being cancelled leaving me another 2 weeks behind because the suff they sold out of my basket is nor out of stock.

I gotta stand on principle... when Defender.com can't see the error in what happened here and at least apologize then all the previous good will just evaporates along with my future business.

TO CAP OFF THIS THREAD... I will be making a list of all the on-line venders recommended by the contributors

Dino

I might just remind everyone that their are TWO SIDES to every story, and their are two sides to this one too. It suspect the other side of this story was hinted at early on in this thread.......

DinoKanuck said:
On the question of phone manners... i work on a phone for a living and know it is how the listener receives the message that counts.. did I merited having my order cancelled... the Defender.com employee certainly thought so.

One of the Defender employees did not like my tone when I pointed out the item they were holding my order for was a foam emergency plug which was not a "must have on any floating boat".

I gotta work on my phone manners or find a Canadian supplier.

Defender has one of the most stellar reputations of any mail-order chandlery going but you just can not please everyone, likely those who may need work on their "phone manners"....

Manureva · Jun 27, 2013

I had good service with binacle as well and they treated me well when i had an issue with my tanks.

Old Skool Neil · Jun 27, 2013

Maine Sail said:
I might just remind everyone that their are TWO SIDES to every story, and their are two sides to this one too. It suspect the other side of this story was hinted at early on in this thread.......

Defender has one of the most stellar reputations of any mail-order chandlery going but you just can not please everyone, likely those who may need work on their "phone manners"....

WOW, I couldn't agree more . . . . .

Charlie Jones s/v Tehani · Jun 27, 2013

Call Defender, ask for Stephen Lance. I'm dead certain he would not be happy to hear of rude people working for him. Might not be able to help with your back orders, but he's serious about Defender's rep.

I've dealt with Defender since the 70's with VERY good relations always

Defender's indifference to Canadians

.

.

.

.

.

Alien

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.