A US-based Shopify seller discovered Canadian customers must pay unexpected tariffs at the post office before receiving their aluminum tool orders, as these duties weren’t collected during checkout.
The Core Issue:
Packages shipped as DDU (Delivery Duties Unpaid) require buyers to pay duties upon delivery
This creates a poor customer experience with items held at post offices
Recommended Solution:
Switch to DDP (Delivery Duties Paid) shipping labels where the seller covers duties upfront
Configure shipping app settings to “Duties Payable by SENDER”
Vanilla Shopify lacks built-in DDP functionality at checkout
Practical Workaround:
Use a third-party shipping app to generate DDP labels (no plan upgrade required)
Instead of collecting exact duties at checkout, simply increase product or shipping prices to cover these costs
This keeps checkout simpler and avoids deterring buyers with additional line items
Key Limitation:
Shopify doesn’t offer ready-made solutions for automatically calculating and collecting exact duty amounts during checkout, making the price-adjustment approach the most practical option.
Summarized with AI on November 15.
AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
Store ships from the US. We sell an aluminum tool. I was surprised to learn that my Canadian customers are having their products locked away at a post office until they visit the office and pay a tariff that was not included in the checkout of Shopify.
Is this common in Canada? Am I doing something wrong that customers are having to pay this? Can I have the tariff paid at checkout? Do tariffs apply to all Canadian provinces? Does upgrading to a different Shopify service allow me to have some of this functionality?
Would appreciate any thoughts anyone has. I was surprised after weeks of searching online not to find anyone discussing this topic, and certainly not with any clear answers or experience.
When sending international packages with DDU (Delivery Duties Unpaid) status, buyers are required to cover the duties to receive their package.
To bypass this, you must arrange your shipment as Delivery Duties Paid (DDP).
Within your shipping app settings, please choose the “Duties Payable by SENDER” option. Note that the specific steps may vary depending on the shipping app you are using.
As for collecting the Duties amount at checkout, there are no ready-made solutions available. You may find guidance on this matter in the response provided by Shopify Staff.
Hi @Seller_Mike - yes it is common place in Canada for there to be duties and taxes applied to orders. If you don’t collect them at checkout, then it’s normal for the post office to hold the item until the customer comes and pays those duties and taxes. You can avoid this subpar experience by collecting these charges directly in Shopify’s checkout, and then shipping with a DDP (delivery duty paid) label, which means there will be no charges on delivery and the order will not be stopped at the post office.
Thanks for your response. Since you run a shipping app maybe you can be blunt. It sounds like vanilla Shopify has no method of DDP. And that my options are to upgrade to a different version of Shopify, or to use a shipping app? Does that sound right to you? And does your app have that ability?
Our app can make DDP labels for you without needing a plan upgrade – that’s the easy part.
But when it comes to collecting duties from buyers during checkout, it’s a bit tricky. We’d recommend just adding the costs to the product price or shipping fees. Keeping things simple like that is better for your buyers, as showing too many costs at checkout can hurt your sales.
I appreciate your help here. Okay so you’re saying the easiest way is to have an app like yours, get a DDP label (which presumably has a way of automatically transmitting tariffs of the correct amount to the correct people), and then adding that cost on top of the shipping price for Canadian customers?