Hello,
I've not been here forever. I was contacted asking me not to advertise here unless I pay; that's fair. The advertising cost is beyond my means, though. Being here would invariably lead to mention of what I make, so I've just stayed away. It's nothing personal.
I was just contacted tonight about a sight that had not arrived. He mentioned that there was a discussion on the "main Canadian gun website" so I figured I'd hop on over and take a look.
Demand is such that the front sights are backordered 6-8 weeks. Please bear that in mind.
Now folks, there is some kind of bad communication going on here. I double-check Canadian mailing addresses before printing the labels. I have had two now come back to me after being circulated in our postal systems for around four weeks. One, the gent moved, or so the note on the box said when it came back. That was about six months ago and I've sent emails to him whenever I think about it, but he doesn't respond. I have no idea what happened to him.
The other one said it wasn't deliverable. There was no further detail than that. Again, emails are going unanswered.
I have three sights setting around awaiting answers to questions I sent to their future owners prior to confirm their addresses. Folks, I have no idea what most of the lines in a Canadian address are, and therefore can't confirm it myself.
Then there are the folks who do not order using "International Shipping". I'm waiting to hear back from a few of them now.
Back when I was shipping across the border for free, waaay too many packages up and disappeared before they reached their final Canadian destinations. Same for a couple, few folks who sent their sights from Canada to me. Some made it, some didn't.
This is when I started charging for Canadian and overseas shipping. To ship with tracking in the United States runs $1.69 (though I often insure the packages therefore spend a couple bucks more), but the minimum price I can find for shipping to Canada with tracking is over $25.00 US. I can't afford to offer free shipping to Canada. If I don't track, too many are lost. If I do track, I'd go broke shipping if I didn't charge.
So, where do we stand, as of right now?
You place your order. In the case of a front sight, it's ready in six to eight weeks. I contact you about a week before it's done to confirm your address, and then mail it. That's how it should work.
I'm finding that, in reality, it's working much differently, frustrating me, frustrating my customers to no end, and keeping me up nights (11:38pm right now as I'm trying to figure this out.)
I'm seriously considering ending all non-domestic shipping unless it's a group buy -- in other words, I'd send, say, 10 sights to one address in Canada, and the recipient would then mail them out via Canadian Post. But it's an idea that I'm only kicking around, and I can see it causing more problems than shipping to individuals (but I can also see it solving a lot more. I don't know yet.)
If the moderators will allow it, I'm going to ask that those of you missing orders contact me via PM here. I don't want to break the rules. I don't think clearing up problematic orders would be considered breaking the rules, but I just don't know.
At any rate, will you please add smithsights@live.com to your address books? This will insure that my email is delivered to you. Those using (FRAUD ALERT), I contact you through the email address listed on your (FRAUD ALERT) accounts. Trying to keep track of two more addresses per individual just doesn't work.
I'm actually glad this came up. I've been growing increasingly aggravated with the whole situation, and I see why a lot of others do not offer non-domestic shipping. I didn't want to be one of those guys who seemed to discriminate against all non-US Citizens by only shipping within the US, but I'm beginning to see that it wasn't discrimination so much as a full-time job itself, shipping internationally.
Moving forward, let's get this worked out. PM me. I'll be checking back both Saturday and Sunday.
Regards,
Josh