Can I get free shipping for ecloth® in Canada?

I've been getting the question often lately about shipping to Canada. A number of large retailers have begun to offer free shipping within Canada on orders sent domestically. Most will require that you spend a minimum amount for the benefit, but it still remains that they offer free shipping.

The cleaning cloth business has yet to offer the same perk to Canada (or Alaska or Hawaii). Norwex is based in Canada, and charges tiered shipping via courier on all domestic orders. Ecloth®'s distribution center is in the US, and offers free shipping within the lower 48 states. That still leaves our Canadian customers on the hook for shipping charges, unfortunately. All ecloth® retailers charge shipping on orders to Canada.  Recently, the US Postal Service (USPS) has increased its fees for packages shipped across the border to Canada.  We are all trying hard to keep these costs down, and finding ways to make sure the pain of shipping fees is not too onerous on the customer.  (BTW, there is an interesting price comparison that may shock you at the end of this post - read on!!!)

So what's a Canadian customer to do to get free shipping on ecloth® to Canada?  Let me offer a few suggestions to bring the shipping charges lower:

1. Quite a few ecloth® customers actually order together.  Everyone has to clean their house, and once bitten by the environmental cleaning bug, and once influenced by the huge amounts of money and time one saves using ecloth®, it becomes hard not to share!!!  A few of my customers place orders for their family along with their own order, and split the shipping.  Since shipping is charged on a tiered basis, it becomes easy to find the strategic point at which shipping will become just a small piece of the overall cost.  Others find people in their neighbourhood, book club, workplace, or church.  Still others will order their own cloths and buy others as gifts for an upcoming shower or special event.  While I won't have an ecloth® party like the others (find out why!!), I have had customers get together to have their own party and submit a large order all together - sometimes it is fun to share the excitement of a new purchase, and an awesome way to become more environmentally conscious together!!!
2. There are a few services cropping up along the US border that are helping Canadians out in this matter.  It's no secret that the majority of Canada's population live within a few hours of the US border.  Why not have your order ship to the US?  You may have family close by stateside, or you can use a service like http://shiptotheborder.com/.  If you live close to the border, you can pick it up yourself.  If not, there are often relatives making the trip soon enough...  We've done this a number of times ourselves with big ticket items like camping equipment and electronics - the savings add up, and it doesn't take too long before one of my family goes to visit the US and can bring the goods back for us.
3. Finally, keep in mind that if you order a few more items, the shipping will not increase until you hit a 'tipping point'.  For instance, rather than ordering a few cloths for $15, it makes more sense to order a few more products as shipping does not increase until over a certain dollar value.

So, how does ecloth® compare to the competition with respect to shipping charges?  Let's have a look below, and the comparison may shock you!!!

I know.  While this proves my point of ordering a few more products (see that shipping stays the same?), it completely blows the competition out of the water with respect to price.