Cross-border returns between Canada and the US

Returns are the least examined part of cross-border ecommerce and frequently the most expensive per unit. The costs are worth laying out individually, because they are not all avoidable in the same way.

Where the money goes

Return freight. International rather than domestic, so higher and slower.

Brokerage on the inbound entry. A fee for making an entry, charged on a parcel containing one garment.

Duty, potentially again. Relief provisions exist for returned goods but require documentation that nobody prepares for individual parcels.

The second crossing. A resellable item is now in Canada, so the next US buyer pays to move it south again. This is usually the largest cost and the one nobody counts.

Refund delay. Weeks of transit before the refund fires, which drives disputes and support load.

Which costs are structural and which are self-inflicted

Freight on an individual international parcel is structural — you cannot make one parcel cheap.

The number of entries is not structural. That is a function of where returns are received, and it is the lever that matters.

The second crossing is entirely self-inflicted and entirely removable. An item that stays in the US and is sold to a US customer crosses the border once in its life.

What changes with a US receiving point

The customer ships domestically: cheap, fast, no commercial invoice, no brokerage, no confusion.

Items are inspected on arrival and graded. Resellable stock is held locally and allocated to US orders. Non-resellable stock is batched.

One consolidated shipment goes to Canada periodically, with the documentation prepared properly — so relief provisions are actually claimable, which they are not on individual parcels.

Modelling it for your brand

Count US returns per month, your resellable proportion, and your average order value. Multiply resellable units by the per-unit second-crossing cost — reship freight plus duty and fees — and you have the bulk of the saving before you count anything else.

Then add the brokerage you stop paying per parcel, and subtract the cost of receiving and holding. For apparel brands with real US volume this is usually decisive, which is the comparison ReturnBridge runs before anyone signs anything.