Canadian Anthropologie lovers getting slapped with high duties by DHL

Oh no, Canada! Anthropologie seems to have recently changed its Canadian shipping methods and several community members have contacted me about getting slapped with high duties when their Anthropologie order arrives. What changed, what you can do, and why you really need to contact Anthropologie directly about this instead of me.


From what I understand Anthropologie used to use Canada Post for standard shipping on Canadian orders. However, it looks like sometime around Black Friday that changed and Anthro is now using DHL for standard shipping. Why is that a big deal? Well, technically international packages are supposed to be subject to taxes and duties. Canada Post sometimes to rarely collected those fees but apparently DHL is very stringent about it, so Anthro customers in Canada are finding that before they can accept their package they have to pay sometimes exorbitant amounts.

For example, one community member who wrote me bought a pair of Pilcros for $118. She paid an extra $20 to ship to Canada. (Yikes, says this already shipping-poor USA Anthro lover.) Then when the jeans arrived DHL assessed her an additional $56. So in the end those $118 pants ended up costing her nearly $200! Another customer who contacted me had purchased a $298 dress on Black Friday. When it arrived DHL was asking for over $100 in taxes, duties and fees. She decided to refuse the package rather than shell out the extra money. For customers who are accustomed to rarely having to pay those duties and taxes, it’s got be a huge shock when their order ends up costing them 40% more than they originally expected!

Here’s another potential issue: now that Anthropologie’s inventory tracking system is better and they use multi-warehouse fulfillment, Canadian Anthropologie lovers could be hit with these taxes and duties on multiple packages for a single order. That really sucks.

Since I don’t live in Canada and I don’t work for Anthropologie I’m not sure whether all Canadian orders with standard shipping are now being delivered by DHL or if that was just to help with fulfillment over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. But if I were Anthropologie I’d be rethinking this, as an increase in refused Canadian orders seems to be on the horizon.

For any Canadian Anthropologie lovers that are frustrated by this, you really need to contact Anthropologie directly. With apologies for playing into the stereotype you guys are too damn nice. I’ve received just under 10 emails about this, and to each person who I tried to impress that if you don’t tell Anthropologie directly they might never know this is an issue, each and every one said something along the lines of “well if it happens again I’ll reach out to them.” DON’T WAIT. If you were brave enough to write to me you can write to Anthropologie too. Writing me has about the same effect as telling your spouse, or your dog, or your coffee mug.

If it makes you feel any better I’ve had some crummy shipping experiences recently too. Shopbop is now owned by Amazon and is offering Amazon Prime members the same shipping options they get on Amazon.com. Great, right? Well, except the order I placed didn’t ship via 1-day shipping like I paid for and is now stuck somewhere in USPS limbo in Chicago, and when I contact Shopbop’s customer service they don’t seem very interested in helping me. Sucks. All I want is my pair of holey jeans!

Piperlime recently changed their free standard shipping to be FedEx saver. The FedEx guy can’t seem to figure out how to use my building intercom so half the time I now need to either go to the FedEx center in the Bronx or to an inconveniently-located FedEx store to pick up my package instead. I knew I was sacrificing when I moved from a doorman building to a non-doorman building but man I’d forgotten how annoying it can be having to pick up packages. Especially in my profession where I receive about 10 packages a week. So now I’m not ordering from Piperlime anymore. (And yes, I wrote them to tell them that.)

Canadians, have you received your recent standard shipping orders from Canada Post or from DHL? Is there anything Canadian Anthro lovers can do to avoid these duties and fees?


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