Babcotools.ca closes

I logged in to babctotools.ca as I was ready to order some tools I had saved in their shopping cart, and everything I had saved was gone. I start looking at the main page, and down at the bottom is this:

"BABCO TOOLS - A MESSAGE FROM THE OWNERS
With regret, we announce our decision to discontinue the BabcoTools unit of our business. The nature of the tools business in Canada has changed in recent years. Back in 2005, we started the tools business in a market where tool trucks dominated and we were able to offer large discounts to our customers for the same tools. Recently, the power of Amazon and other large etailers based in the US, have eroded our ability to provide our customers with the savings we desire. Amazons’ buying clout is massive and their ability to deliver product quickly and cost effectively can’t be matched.
We’ve tried to buck the trend for a couple years, but it’s not a battle we can win. On the plus side, for buyers of small tools in Canada, your ability to get a great price and delivery has never been so great. In some small way, Babco was kind of at the forefront of this.
It’s been a good ride and we appreciate your loyalty and business through the years. At Babco, we are going to continue to focus on our core, being Canada's largest retailer of car lifts and tire equipment through our BabcoEquip website.
We are actually kind of excited and rejuvenated about narrowing our focus back to equipment, including parts and service. We’ve had some ideas which we are now pushing forward on in 2015. We are confident that it’s going to be an amazing year!
Sincerely,
The entire Babco team"

Over the last year or so our Canuck buck has had the most precipitous drop in relation to the US dollar in our national history, thanks to low oil prices and worldwide instability flooding money into the US. I'm glad I bought a ton of tools and other things online from multiple US websites when our dollar was at parity or higher over the last few years. I wondered how long it would last. The main issue we face here is poor selection, high prices, and poorly designed websites. If I search for an item online I can find multiple places to order it from US businesses, but very little in Canada. I ordered about $1200 worth of tools from Babco over the last 3 years. So now I'm left with Snap-On (whose Canadian online service is excellent BTW), a few obscure sites with mediocre selection, 2 local B&M stores, and a ton of US sites with excellent selection and service but selling in USD. Today's exchange is 1.2772 including the bank's fee.

I love online ordering. I rarely go to stores to shop anymore. I'm a hobbyist so I don't need anything immediately. I have no access to tool trucks unless I happen to see one in a parking lot, and they don't seem to be overly interested in selling to me anyway (Snap-on and Mac).

For some reason there's a ton of Canadian websites selling woodworking tools (lots of trees here?.....), but not many for automotive/mechanical related items. The local B&M stores are only open Monday-Friday during the day. Hello 21 st century: I guess I'm back to driving to a B&M store when I'm off on a week day to physically purchase tools locally. OTOH, I placed an online order with a US tool dealer at 2308h yesterday, including free shipping as I'm sending it to a parcel holding service in North Dakota, and at 0906h this morning I received an email stating they had shipped my order.

Wake up Canada!! Selection and lousy online shopping are driving away Canadian sales, even with our weak dollar!

Wow - lucky me I got an email yesterday saying that my order has shipped! Phew! Very unfortunate on the other hand.

The main problem is that these items we are looking for just do not exist here. I look at Kmart website and they are selling Knipex I've never even seen before.

It doesn't surprise me, their service wasn't very good. I ordered a couple of times from them.

The first time I ordered something that they had on overstock, so they already had it on hand. Service this time was as expected. The second time, it was my brother who ordered stuff for my birthday present. This time they didn't have it (they didn't stock any tools as a rule), there was no communication when they had problems and poor attitude when my brother tried to find out what was going on. The order took over 5 weeks to arrive.

I decided I was never ordering from them again. It looks like I won't have any problem keeping that promise to myself.

Yeah, their service was slow, but that was OK for my non-professional use. At least I had good access to online automotive related tools.

It's frustrating that we're so behind the times in online shopping. Canada's GDP per capita is very close the US on multiple measures, we're at about about $1.8 trillion dollars in GDP per year, we're well up there in international internet availability, and yet I have a hard time buying automotive tools online from Canadian businesses.

Harrrumph........

I realize the exchange rate is a major hurdle...

But, do you still have to pay "Import Duty" and VAT, if you order from a U.S. online retailer???

oldldh said:

I realize the exchange rate is a major hurdle...

But, do you still have to pay "Import Duty" and VAT, if you order from a U.S. online retailer???

Click to expand...

Depends on who you ship through. I have no idea how it works, but if you use UPS, you get nailed with all kinds of taxes and fees.

When i get a shipment through USPS, I don't even pay tax.

I saw this last week.
While I hate to see a tool monger go under I can't say I'll miss them too much. Their prices really went to hell about 2 years ago and I've been using other dealers (G2S/Amazon/NAPA(?!)/local autobody jobber) ever since.

oldldh said:

I realize the exchange rate is a major hurdle...

But, do you still have to pay "Import Duty" and VAT, if you order from a U.S. online retailer???

Click to expand...

Sales taxes are payable when you import anything into Canada. Duty is only payable on specific items. Anything manufactured in Canada, USA, or Mexico is duty free due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994.

Total sales taxes are a combination of federal and provincial rates. General Sales Tax (GST) of 5% is payable to the federal government. Each province sets its own provincial sales tax (PST) and decides on what things it applies. A few provinces have a harmonized sales tax (HST) which combine both PST and GST both in rate and application. In non harmonized provinces some things get charged GST but not PST. The GST is really a Euro styles VAT with provincial taxes as separate. For me, the combination of PST and GST is 13%. I doesn't matter is if I bring items across the border myself or have them shipped. I was charged duty when I ordered Hazet tools from Germany, about 6% IIRC.

Any shipper will charge some type of handling fee though. The postal service is the cheapest, often a flat fee of $8 CDN. For some reason items get let through customs with no fees or taxes at times, I'm not sure why. FedEx brokerage fees can be OK, but UPS fees are ridiculous, to the point where I will not purchase anything outside Canada that will be shipped via UPS.

jvitez said:

Sales taxes are payable when you import anything into Canada. Duty is only payable on specific items. Anything manufactured in Canada, USA, or Mexico is duty free due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994. {NAFTA only covers certain commodities}

Total sales taxes are a combination of federal and provincial rates. <S>General Sales Tax</S> {It's called "Goods & Services Tax" (we are now taxed on services too)} (GST) of 5% is payable to the federal government. Each province sets its own provincial sales tax (PST) and decides on what things it applies. A few provinces have a harmonized sales tax (HST) which combine both PST and GST both in rate and application. In non harmonized provinces some things get charged GST but not PST. The GST is really a Euro styles VAT with provincial taxes as separate. For me, the combination of PST and GST is 13%. I doesn't matter is if I bring items across the border myself or have them shipped. I was charged duty when I ordered Hazet tools from Germany, about 6% IIRC.

Any shipper will charge some type of handling fee though. The postal service is the cheapest, often a flat fee of $8 CDN. For some reason items get let through customs with no fees or taxes at times, I'm not sure why. FedEx brokerage fees can be OK, but UPS fees are ridiculous, to the point where I will not purchase anything outside Canada that will be shipped via UPS.

Click to expand...

I fixed a few minor details.

This is one of the things I hate about ebay's Global Shipping Program. We are charged taxes on ALL purchases. Things that are over 35 years old for example are considered antique and were never taxable. Old tools used to ship free of these fees but not now. Now we are charged taxes when we pay for the item right on ebay. We have a private US company, Pitney Bowes, collecting Canadian taxes in the USA for ALL purchases. This is a cash grab conjured up by a few cronies at Pitney Bowes and ebay with a percentage going to the destination country under the guise of "safer shipping". With an average of $181 million in Gross Merchandise Value Per Day you can see why grabbing a buck or 2 from each transaction is worthwhile (as long as we users are paying the extra cost).

jvitez said:

Yeah, their service was slow, but that was OK for my non-professional use. At least I had good access to online automotive related tools.

It's frustrating that we're so behind the times in online shopping. Canada's GDP per capita is very close the US on multiple measures, we're at about about $1.8 trillion dollars in GDP per year, we're well up there in international internet availability, and yet I have a hard time buying automotive tools online from Canadian businesses.

Harrrumph........

Click to expand...

If you have slow service, then I want to be told that up front. If it's going to take 6 weeks, tell me it's going to take 6 weeks. Telling me it's going to be 2 weeks when it's going to take 6, that's a sure way to get me to never order from you again.

MikeF2316 said:

Telling me it's going to be 2 weeks when it's going to take 6, that's a sure way to get me to never order from you again.

Click to expand...

I completely agree. Be clear, be honest. Somehow that gets lost on too many businesses.

2oolhound: very interesting! Thanks for the information. I didn't know antiques were taxation exempt.

$181 million per day? Yikes! Is that how much we Canucks order on US Ebay every day, or is that all non-US sales?