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I think we should have a confirmation from Bangkok Kid or Sunny on what method it is.
Ok, first of all, Sunny is not a member on Head-Fi. The only members of Heir Audio that are on Head-Fi are The Wizard and myself (Tao is also around, but does not post), so I just thought that I would clarify this to avoid any future confusion and people wondering why Sunny never picks up on their messages here. If you would like to get in touch with Sunny, please email her at: sunny@micro-dsp.com. She is also based out of the labs in Chengdu with the Wizard (as are Nancy, Echo, Keiser Soze, etc...), occasionally I get phone calls from people asking to speak to Sunny .
"UPS Ground," or "UPS Standard" if you are shipping internationally to another country that they can drive a truck to the point of pick up to the point of destination, is the entry-level form of UPS service and it is with this service where UPS has a
tendency to hit customers with lofty brokerage fees. Please note that I said "tendency" as they do not always hit customers with lofty brokerage fees, for instance there are obviously no fees shipping Ground within the US and we have had experiences where there have been little fees for Canadian customers as well. It is important to note that, in the case of shipping from San Diego to Canada, the next shipping option up UPS Worldwide Expedited is priced at about 3 times as much ($80+) as UPS Standard and here the brokerage fees are essentially zero. Obviously, brokerage fees under UPS Worldwide Expedited and higher are factored into the price and with this in mind it comes as little surprise that brokerage fees are charged separately with UPS Standard.
For our US based customers that order IEMs and other accessories that are stocked readily in San Diego, we ship (and have been for some time) via UPS 2-day Air shipping which is a very premium service that falls just under 2-day Air A.M. (technically still 2-day) and Next Day Air (overnight). However, for our Canadian customers, UPS Worldwide Expedited (one up from UPS Standard) is simply priced to far above what we charge for shipping ($29) to justify and we forced to ship UPS Standard if we want to stick with UPS. Now, the question is, why don't you ship via EMS, USPS, FedEx to Canada? The answer:
volume. While the case could certainly be made that some of our best customers reside in Canada,
perhaps 5-10% of our shipments from the US location head to Canada. It is much easier to ship all 10 packages that you are shipping with UPS, than to ship 9 packages with UPS and 1 package with another carrier. This may come across as being lazy and not to come off as pretentious, but we are really busy folks. I work all hours not because I choose to, simply because there is work to be done, questions to be answered, things to be discussed and planned. Still I digress, however, if you are a Canadian customer ordering a non-custom product and/or accessory (shipping from our US location) and would like it to be sent out via another means, please let me know and I
will accommodate your request. There are members here on Head-Fi that have done this and in every case we have obliged. I cannot however look out for everyone, especially if they are not looking out for themselves, the train I drive cannot afford to stop.
Now, onto international shipments. As you cannot drive a truck from Chengdu to Canada, UPS Standard is automatically ruled out as an option here and therefore, so are potentially lofty brokerage fees. UPS presents two options here, UPS Worldwide Saver (Express) and UPS Worldwide Expedited. I am not sure which one HQ uses, Echo would know, both of these are very fine shipping options and cost much more than $55. Incase you are wondering, the spread between the two is less than or equal to 2%, they are essentially the same option price wise. As stated in our FAQ, the price of shipping does not include any customs fees or fees associated with bringing the product in country. So, while you should expect to pay customs fees just as you would if we shipped with another carrier, you should not expect to pay any more/less.
When it comes right down to it, the whole point of using UPS is not to save everyone money, it is to save everyone time. UPS is as good if not better than everyone out there when it comes to getting things from point A to point B in a timely fashion. This is not secret and while I am sure there are certainly one off instances where USPS outperforms UPS, these cases are outliers. If you gave me a choice to work with somebody that was very good 95% of the time or somebody that was immeasurably excellent 20% of the time and mediocre (or worse) the other 80% of the time, I would choose very good 95% of the time. That is what UPS represents and that is why we use them.
So, I hope that answers most, if not all, of the questions people had regarding shipping with Heir. As always, if you have any more questions please feel free to post them here, or email me, or text me, or call me, or fax me, or mail me a letter, and I will get back to you at my earliest possible convenience.
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DigitalFreak: Changing from UPS to EMS once your customs arrive in Canada would need to be done manually and therefore cannot be done as we do not have anybody on the ground in Canada in this present time.
