MakeShift
I have not shipped across the boarder only to Texas. :-). So far, no issues, reasonably fast delivery.
Good to hear even if it is based on domestic experiences. If they are a good company who treat their customers well then that is definitely pertinent. It tells me that there is less likely to be an issue on their end which is half the battle in these situations.
ampfixer
I deal with a place in Arizona. It's called CE distribution or Antique Electronics supply, depending if you are a wholesale or retail purchaser. They have a lot of guitar and amp parts that are tough to find in my local stores.
I don't use the American music retailers because something always happens that prevents them from shipping to Canada. I've registered and gone through the order process only to be told at checkout that they won't ship across the border. If the stuff you want to buy also has a Canadian distributor, the answer is usually no shipment. Amazon will ship stuff that MF won't ship, so I don't think it's a legal issue. I think the blockade is designed to protect Canadian retailers.
Agreed. There does certainly seem to be more retail license restrictions up here concerning musical gear compared to other stuff. Even still cruising Amazon Canada vs. Amazon US even mundane items are insanely overpriced on our version and if I want to order from the US site it's apparently a buyer beware type scenario as far as duty, shipping and returns. It really makes me wonder (well not really) exactly who truly benefits from all this free trade stuff that got crammed down our throats. Certainly not me.
However in regards to the "surprises at check out" aspect when I was perusing MF's site earlier and checking out their international shipping policies it looks like they will only show products available in Canada based on I'm guessing the IP address. After I allowed the main MF domain I got a popup stating as much and there was indeed a more limited selection. They also went out of their way to say that IF I wanted to order from their US site I could do so but it would have to be shipped to a friend in the US (which I have done in the past but it's a pain and ends up costing a lot more in the long run).
So that's kind of cool to save time and the "All In" pricing is cool too for eliminating further surprises which is what prompted this thread. I don't intend to buy anything from them anytime soon but if I get some good reports I'll consider them as an extra option to check out when the other sites and my local retailers are being problematic.
Thanks for the recommendations. I will take a look at those (always interested in checking out who offers what). Might be a little more specific than my needs but in the future I would like to start rewiring my own gear and building little custom doodads for the studio. I'm not quite smart enough for all that yet but I will need quality parts for a decent price and I'm assuming in your line of work you'd know the right places to go.
Cheers.