Canadian Rates May Not Be Accurate Ship Station

[WishShipStation]

In Canada carriers must charge GST/HST on shipping costs whenever a shipment is shipped within Canada.  As far as I can tell the UPS API Ship Station is using gives rates without GST/HST and FedEx API gives rates with GST/HST included.  Therefore, it would seem when setting up a lowest cost shipping strategy in Ship Station UPS could be chosen over other carriers when in fact the other carrier (FedEx in my example below) is cheaper.

UPS Rate $11.00

Add 13% Tax (Ontario)

With tax $12.43

Assume a FedEx Rate of $11.30 (tax included) for the same shipment.

The UPS rate will be chosen by Ship Station as the lowest cost as it assumes $11.00 is cheaper than $11.30, but in fact with tax the UPS rate would be $12.43.  Ship Station is not comparing Apples to Apples and customers are paying more than they should.

Ship Station needs to find a work around for this by adding GST to UPS shipping rates or use an API that gives comparable rates to other carriers.

[WishShipStation]

We had to choose another company to ship Canadian orders (from Canada) because Ship Station cannot rate Canadian orders correctly.  

[Lkorexi]

I am trying to find the hst/gst charges for my labels im purchasing through shipstation. It is not listed anywhere, even when exporting data. Do you know where to find that information?

[WishShipStation]

We use our own accounts so I do not know where you might find it, but I do recall other people in the community asking for this and Ship Station never responded as usual.  In my opinion Ship Station really does not work well for Canadian shippers. I hope you get an answer.  Are you shipping outside Canada?

[Lkorexi]

We ship exclusively in Canada. We are very frustrated with shipstations run around when it comes to taxes. We know we are being charged for them but cannot collect any information on the amount of taxes we pay per label. 

[WishShipStation]

What shopping cart platform are you using?

[WishShipStation]

Are you using Ship Station for inventory or verifying orders or just shipping?

[Lkorexi]

We use bigcommerce. We use shipstations courier services to purchase shipping labels. Not sure if im answering your question.

[jschaub]

Were you able to figure this out?  I am also trying to find this.  I contacted stamps to get an invoice on each shipment and they told me to contact shipstation.  I contacted shipstation and they don't have the answer to get and invoicing - they will suggest it to their developers?   Please let me know if you solved this

[Lkorexi]

Nothing,
I'm terribly disappointed. We are about to file our end of year taxes and we will be missing thousands of tax write offs because of this.

[CaraAdmin]

Hello Lkorexi!

First and foremost, thank you for your post and your patience. We are providing the rates the partner gives us during the API call. This is a known issue, and brainstorming is in progress to solve this. 

I know we are looking to log some examples of this, so if you could call support and log this, we could connect it to the issue and when it is solved you will be updated. 

[WishShipStation]

I sent you so many emails and called your company.  Your company is joke. This is what someone might consider a major flaw and you still have no solution. It is so simple.  You need to remove the taxes or add them to the other carriers to make them equal. Brainstorming done. 

[WishShipStation]

By the way your competitors in Canada can do it.  Why can't you?  It is very clear that Ship Station does not think this is an issue to care about as it is now 6 months later and still no solution.  We do not use your product in Canada and no one else should either whenever they want to compare shipping rates.

[CaraAdmin]

Hello Lkorexi! I forgot to add this to my reply, but the issues with taxes appearing are also known. THANK YOU for keeping us informed of why this feature is needed.  There is also some brainstorming behind the scenes to develop a solution for our customers. Thank you for your patience and happy Shipping. 

-Cara

[Tifan]

Hello

Any update on this??

Are you still brainstorming?

[WishShipStation]

Ship Station has a nice looking admin, but you might just want to choose a platform that handles Canada better like Machool.

[RGCanada]

It’s now December, 2024 and after dealing with the most recent Canada post strike, we set up Shipstation. Sadly, after trying to retrieve my invoices so I can input them into our books, there is still no solution to the issue above. There is no way to know the GST/HST breakdown for what was paid to Shipstation, and Shipstation refuses to help. They repeatedly state that they don’t pay tax and don’t charge tax on their subscription, despite me arguing that I pay them and they pay the carriers. I know the carriers are charging GST/HST, so why can’t I see the breakdown? They told me to take the tracking numbers and ask the carriers directly for the invoices of what they charged for tax. Not sure they will give me invoices that I didn’t pay for, but okey dokey.

[WishShipStation]

Ship Station does not understand Canadian shipping.  They do not understand Canadian taxes and the company refuses to even bother to try.  You are better off using another platform for Canadian shipping and only use Ship Station to ship to the US or not all.

[WishShipStation]

Ship Station does not understand Canadian shipping.  They do not understand Canadian taxes and the company refuses to even bother to try.  You are better off using another platform for Canadian shipping and only use Ship Station to ship to the US or not all.