More and more, I’m getting asked “Can I JUST sell to Americans if I sell on Etsy Canada?” or “Do I have to sell in Canada if I’m a Canadian Etsy seller?”.
As a matter of fact, you can have a Canadian business or side hustle that only does business in the United States. Just because you are a Canadian company does not mean you must cater to Canadians. In fact, most Canadian Print-on-Demand sellers make most of their profit from sales to the United States.
Here’s my thoughts on whether you should sell print-on-demand on Etsy in Canada.
Starting Out:
Most print-on-demand suppliers cater to the United States, in fact some of them don’t even ship to Canada. I always recommend you start with my choice Print-on-Demand provider Printify. Its easy to start local to the United States or Canada, and then scale to sell globally when you are ready.
Getting started with Print-on-Demand (POD) as a Canadian is especially difficult and many people get stuck before they even open their stores for business. Canadians face unique challenges and various free setup guides are contradictory, often out of date or incomplete, leaving you stuck! Not only does my Print-on-Demand Roadmap for Canadians help you get setup and launch your store without having to google what settings and options to choose, it also includes videos with my insights and advice on what things you need (and don’t need!) to be doing to become profitable and scale your Print-on-Demand empire!
While it might seem smart to offer shipping worldwide in order to reach the largest amount of customers possible, it will also slow you down. Your priority needs to be getting your store open for business, so I recommend you start simple, by choosing an American print provider through Printify that has a large catalogue of items so you can quickly create listings without worrying about multiple shipping profiles, international suppliers and shipping rates.
This is what I STRONGLY recommend you do to start, UNLESS you plan to sell in a Canadian-specific niche
Not sure how to find a niche or where to start? Join my Print-on-Demand Roadmap course for a step-by-step recipe for success.
Tax Considerations:
If you are an established business or seller wanting to leverage Print-On-Demand to grow your business, you are most likely already a registered business or sole proprietor in Canada with a registered GST number.
When do I need to register for a GST number in Canada?
If you are a business or sole proprietor (solopreneur or self employed individual), you need to register for a GST number and start collecting GST on top of your sales and services once you have collected more than $30,000 in revenue over the course of 12 months.
Once you add your GST registration number to your Etsy profile, you are required to include GST/HST in the price of your items. GST/HST is not charged on top of your sales and Etsy does not provide any reporting tools to help keep track of GST/HST collected as part of your sales, which is why I created this super easy copy/paste spreadsheet to calculate how much tax you have collected from your Etsy sales at the end of the year. Because Canada has GST and HST rates that range from 5% to 15% its very difficult to price your items to “include tax” in the price. For this reason, some sellers have decided to stop selling to Canada and instead sell to countries where they are not registered to collect tax, because Etsy will collect the tax for them and there is no need to include taxes in the price of the item.
Product Availiabiltiy
If you are thinking about scaling your Etsy Print-on-Demand business to sell globally, or want to sell to your fellow Canadians as well as Americans, you might notice that certain products are not available in certain countries.
Note: this is different than certain items being available to ship to certain countries
Most POD suppliers do their best to avoid cross-border shipping and print items using available printers and products within the customer’s country. This allows them to offer faster and cheaper shipping times, however it can come at the cost of fewer color options or customizations.
If you choose to partner with Printify, you always have the option to ship cross-border using your preferred provider or select another one from Printify’s network of suppliers. However some items may not be available to ship internationally due to shipping and import laws.
When should you switch suppliers based on customer location?
- when customers need fast delivery
- when its too expensive to ship internationally
- when additional VAT, taxes or tariffs may be charged on incoming international packages
When shouldn’t you switch suppliers based on customer location?
- when a specific size or color is not available
- when slower shipping times are acceptable
- when it is too expensive to ship domestically
- when it is too expensive to use a produce domestically
Shipping Cost, Logistics & Setup
Although Printify has a network of global suppliers who you can choose to fulfil international orders, re-routing orders based on location and availability can be challenging if you don’t want to use Printify’s default settings and prefer to have complete control over which orders get re-routed, when, and to which supplier.
On the Etsy side of things, setting up shipping profiles and determining how much to charge for shipping can be a headache. The cost to fulfill an order (production cost + shipping cost) varies by provider, so if you are using multiple suppliers, determining how much to charge for items and shipping is much less straightforward, especially because you cannot change the price of an item based on the customers location, you can only change the shipping cost. You end up spending much more time than anticipated trying to calculate costs, even if you are using shipping rate calculator like this one.
On top of that, some countries are simply more expensive to ship to, like Canada. Even domestic shipping is expensive and it is still cheaper to ship from Canada to the United States than it is to ship from Canada to Canada.
Because of all these factors, some sellers much prefer to avoid shipping to Canada. I don’t recommend this (unless you are just starting and should just focus on one region). The easiest way to sell to Canada (assuming you’re already selling in the United States) is to ship cross border from your regular print provider and charge much more for Canadian shipping to make up any difference in profit. Although your shipping prices might be high enough to turn off some Canadian buyers, I believe that you should leave it in the customer’s hands to decide how much is “too much” shipping for an item they want to buy.
Product Quality
In addition to the reasons listed above that make using multiple suppliers difficult, some sellers worry about untested quality and need to order samples before using a new supplier which means selling internationally costs time and money. This is why I recommend starting local and scale to offer shipping to more countries once your business is established and you are ready to invest in growth.
Another thing to lookout for is actually the print size and this goes for all suppliers, whether they are in a different region or not! Different suppliers have different machinery and as a result the areas in which you can print or the size of the print are sometimes different. This is especially important for designs that are printed on the back side and sleeves of garments.
Should I list in Canadian dollars?
One question that gets sellers confused is the difference between selling TO Canadians and selling IN Canada dollars. Regardless of who you sell to, you have to choose a store currency – aka listing currency – so that when you say an item costs 36.00, Etsy understands whether you mean to sell that item for $CA36.00 or $36.00 or £36.00 etc.
I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH: if you are a Canadian business selling on Etsy, list your items in Canadian dollars!!
Why? Because Etsy charges Canadian businesses and individuals extra fees when you set your “store currency” and list items in any currency other than Canadian dollars.
