Buying a GPU online in Canada. Canadian or American sites?

[RichardM94]

Greetings.

I'm selecting the parts for my first build and I've noticed that parts are significantly more expensive to order off Canadian sites than american (amazon.ca vs amazon.com).

For example, the MSI GTX 970 is 334$ + free shipping on amazon.com but it's a whopping 450$ on amazon.ca.

My question is, is it possible or even worth it in some circumstances to order from an american site if the price margin is quite large? I know I'll have to pay some form of sales tax but it can't be more than 120$, can it?

Also I live 10 minutes from the border. Could I technically rent a P.O box in the states and send my parts there?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rogue Leader]

The problem for you is the exchange rate, $334 USD is equal (as of right now) to $431 CAD. So if you were to buy it in the US you really would only be saving $19 CAD.

Not really worth it. As you may end up paying a tax at customs if you want to do it all legally. Or just the expense of the PO box and the time/gas to get there and back.

 

[getochkn]

You're not taking the exchange rate into effect. $334USD is $431CAD right now, so not a big diff. Plus most US sites won't ship to Canada, or if they do, you will have to pay import duty, which after the exchange rate, might be more than the .ca site.

People always forgot about the exchange rate when comparing prices.

 

[mudpuppet]

Looks to be $4.99 on amazon to ship from the US to you, could be wrong, but take a look yourself. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=596192
PS... if you look under used, you can usually snag an open box deal for a little less, as much as 30$ maybe. My 970 EVGA FTW was about 360 new and I grabbed it for about 305$ because someone opened the box and then had buyers remorse and returned it. Works just fine and if there's an issue, I can get it replace via amazon... though I'm not sure how that'll work with "international orders."

EDIT: Looks like they have one that's $301, that choice is yours, but I've had good experiences with the 3 parts I ordered this way so I can't complain and will recommend it if it saves a nice chunk of change ($30 gets you a lot of cheese burgers at McDonalds... or a few games at a Steam sale).

 

[Quixit]

Don't order from the US, you'll be changed duty and probably a brokering fee when it hits the border. If I were you I'd just cruise NCIX.com and Newegg.ca's sale sections for sales. eBay.ca (but make sure you know what customs cost will be if you buy internationally) is a good option too, a lot of the cards on there haven't been used very much and you can get a deal.

Renting a PO box doesn't actually save you money because you still need to pay duty when re-entering Canada.

 

[RichardM94]

Ahh yes exchange rates... I knew I was missing something. But good idea on the open box suggestions I noticed a few of those but thought they could be too good to be true. I'll keep on the lookout for deals while I order!

 

[Memhorder]

Couple more options for a Canadian would be

http://www.canadacomputers.com/

and

http://www.directcanada.com/

I Bought parts from these guys and they are competitive

but...looking at the prices even on Newegg.ca they still hover around 415 -500