Buying Personalized Jewelry in Canada: Duty, Shipping, Timing and Who Pays When Something Goes Wrong
Ordering a personalized necklace from outside Canada raises questions that buying one downtown never does. Who pays the border charge. How many days it really takes. What happens if the engraving comes back spelled wrong — and whether that is your problem or ours.
This page answers those questions for orders placed on this store, using the same wording our policy pages use. Where a figure is set by the Canadian government rather than by us, we say so instead of guessing at it. Nothing below is written to reassure you; it is written so that you can check it. Every number here is either on our shipping and delivery page, our return and exchange page, or on the product page of the piece you are looking at.
What It Costs to Get an Order to Your Door
Standard shipping to a Canadian address is CA$9.95. Orders over CA$139 ship free. That is the whole shipping table — a single rate to any Canadian address, stated on the shipping page before you reach checkout.
For context on where the CA$139 line falls, these are the current ranges on the main personalized collections: photo jewelry runs to 103 designs, from CA$69.95 to CA$159.95; photo lockets 31 designs, from CA$79.95; name necklaces 11 designs, from CA$69.95; birthstone jewelry 106 designs, from CA$59.95 to CA$209.95; and moss agate rings 44 designs, from CA$119.95 to CA$269.95.
The practical consequence: one mid-range piece plus shipping lands near CA$80 to CA$100 before any border charge, while two pieces from the same order usually clear CA$139 and the shipping line disappears. If you are buying for two people anyway, putting both on one order is cheaper than two orders, and it has a second benefit at the border that we come back to below.
How Long the Shipping Leg Takes
The transit leg is 7–12 business days, counted from the day the parcel leaves our studio rather than from the day you click buy. It is tracked the whole way, and you get an email with the tracking number as soon as it ships. Business days exclude weekends and statutory holidays, so a parcel that leaves on a Thursday before a long weekend loses those days.
The making stage is separate from transit and depends on the design — a ready-to-ship piece and a hand-engraved one are not on the same clock. The current figure for that stage is stated on the shipping and delivery page; read it there for the design you are actually buying rather than assuming a number.
If you are buying for a date, count backwards: the date you need it, minus a buffer for the border, minus the 7–12 business days in transit, minus the making stage for that design. For anything tied to a specific day, order the week before you think you need to. A tracked parcel that sits on the same status line for a few days is normally sitting in a customs queue rather than lost; if you would rather have us look into it, send us the order number through the contact page.
Duty, Taxes and Import Charges: You Pay These, Not Us
Our policy says it in one line, and we are not going to soften it: the purchaser is responsible for any customs duties, taxes, or import charges that may arise during shipment.
Here is why, mechanically. Parcels for Canadian orders ship from Hong Kong, so they enter the country as international imports and are assessed by the Canada Border Services Agency. That assessment is not something we control, quote, or collect. Three separate things can appear on it: duty, which depends on what the item is and where it was made; GST and, depending on your province, provincial tax; and the carrier's own handling or brokerage fee, which is the carrier charging you for processing the paperwork and is not a government charge at all.
Whether anything appears depends on the value of the shipment and the thresholds in force when it crosses. Sometimes there is nothing to pay and sometimes there is. We deliberately do not print those thresholds here: they are set by CBSA, they change, and a number copied into a blog post ages badly. Read the current one from the source, not from a merchant with an interest in the answer.
What we can do, we do. Where several items are bought together we ship them in one parcel, which means one assessment instead of three. What we will not do is understate a parcel's value on the customs form to shrink your charge. People ask, and the request is understandable, but it puts your parcel at risk of seizure and it is not a favor we are willing to do anyone.
One point of comparison, since it comes up: several of our European stores ship on a duty-paid basis, where the tax is settled before the parcel moves. Canada is not on that arrangement. We would rather write that plainly on this page than let you find it out from a courier at your front door.
The First Five Minutes After It Arrives
Open the parcel with the packaging still in front of you, and check four things before anything else. That the design is the one you ordered. That the engraved text matches what you submitted, character for character, including capitals and accents. That the photo is the image you uploaded and sits the way you expected inside the setting. And that nothing is bent, scratched, or arrived loose in the box.
If something is off, photograph it before you take the piece out — a clear shot of the engraving or the damage, plus a shot of the parcel. Then send your order number and those photos through the contact page. Photographs are what let a wrong-item or damage claim be settled at our end instead of being argued about, and they are the single thing that most often decides how quickly it gets resolved.
You have 60 days from the date you receive your order to raise a return or exchange. That window is generous on purpose, but the first five minutes are still the cheapest time to catch a problem.
Who Pays When Something Goes Wrong
This is the table we would want if we were the ones buying. It is a condensed reading of the return and exchange policy, and where the two ever disagree, the policy page wins.
| What happened | Whose cost | What happens | When to raise it |
|---|---|---|---|
| The wrong item arrived | Ours | Free replacement or a full refund. No postage fees, restocking fees or hidden charges. | Within 60 days of receiving it |
| It arrived damaged or broken | Ours | Free replacement or a full refund, same terms. | Within 60 days; photograph it first |
| The engraving or photo does not match what you submitted | Ours | Treated as a wrong item: free replacement or a full refund. Being personalized does not exempt our own mistake. | Within 60 days of receiving it |
| You changed your mind about a personalized piece | Yours | Not returnable. Custom-crafted items are final sale — the piece exists only because you ordered it. | Decide before you order |
| You submitted a spelling mistake yourself | Yours | The piece matches your order, so the returns policy does not cover it. Write to us the moment you notice — how much can be done depends entirely on how far along the order is. | Immediately, before it ships |
| Duty, tax or a carrier brokerage fee at the border | Yours | Charged by CBSA or the carrier, payable to them, usually before the parcel is released. Not collected by us and not refundable by us. | On delivery |
| Shipping on an order under CA$139 | Yours | Flat CA$9.95. Free above CA$139. | At checkout |
Read the pattern rather than the rows: when the fault is at our end, the fix costs you nothing, return postage included. When the decision was yours, or when the charge is levied by someone who is not us, it sits with you. We would rather that division be boring and written down than generous-sounding and vague.
Why a Personalized Piece Cannot Come Back Just Because You Changed Your Mind
The policy wording is this: because your jewelry is custom-crafted to be as unique as you are, all sales are final. That sentence does real work, so it is worth being clear about what sits behind it.
A necklace carrying your daughter's name, or a photograph of your grandmother, cannot go back on a shelf. There is no second customer for it and nothing to restock. That is the entire reason the rule exists — not to make returns awkward, but because the object stopped being general merchandise the moment it was made for you.
Which puts more weight than usual on the ordering screen. Before you pay, check the spelling and the capitalization of every name, check accented characters if the name has them, check the character limit shown on that product page, and on a two-sided piece check which text belongs on which side. The text you type is the text we cut: there is no proofing stage between your keyboard and the engraving tool, so treat the field as final when you submit it. If you are working out how many names will fit on one pendant, we went through the field limits design by design in how to choose a name necklace.
And the exception, because it is the half people miss: final sale covers your change of mind, not our errors. If what arrives is not what you submitted, that is a wrong item and it is on us, with no postage cost to you.
How to Check What a Piece Is Made Of Before You Buy
This matters more when buying across a border, because you cannot pick the thing up first. Our range includes 925 sterling silver pieces alongside stainless steel, copper, brass and leather, and the mix genuinely differs from one collection to the next. The exact material for each design is listed on its product page.
Two words to read carefully anywhere online. Silver-tone and silver-plated describe a surface, not the metal underneath — a plated brass chain and a solid one can photograph identically. If the metal matters to you, whether for durability or because someone has a nickel sensitivity, the material line on the product page is the line to read, and it is the one we would judge any other shop by too.
Stone names deserve the same treatment. On our birthstone jewelry designs the stone is named for what it is rather than given a house name, and if you want to understand what sits behind those names, that is the subject of what birthstones are actually made of. A center stone described only by a brand's own invented name tells you nothing about the material, and that is worth noticing before you spend.
Who You Are Actually Buying From
IfShe has been making personalized jewelry since 2013. The company behind this store is Ifshe Jewelry Co., Limited, a Hong Kong company, and it operates twelve country stores of which this Canadian one is part. Parcels for Canadian orders ship from Hong Kong, which is why the customs section above exists at all.
We are not a Canadian workshop and we are not going to imply that we are. Some buyers will prefer a local maker for exactly that reason, and that is a reasonable preference. What we offer instead is specific: one flat shipping rate, tracked shipping with the number emailed to you, a 60-day window from the day the parcel reaches you, and a written rule for who pays when something goes wrong. You can read all of it before you spend anything, on the shipping page, the returns page, and the FAQ.
One last thing, offered against our own interest. If this is your first order with any overseas shop, ours included, paying with a method that carries its own dispute process is simply sensible. We would rather you have that backstop and never need it than skip it on our word.
Questions Canadian Customers Ask
Will I have to pay duty on my order? We cannot tell you in advance, and any shop that gives you a firm yes or no is guessing. The purchaser is responsible for duties, taxes and import charges; whether any arise depends on the shipment's value and the thresholds CBSA applies at the time it crosses. The carrier may also add its own handling fee, which is separate.
How long from order to door? Three stages, in order: the making stage for that design, which is stated on the shipping page; then 7–12 business days in transit; then whatever time the parcel spends at the border. Tracked throughout, with the tracking number emailed at dispatch.
Can I return a personalized piece if I simply do not like it? No. Custom-crafted items are final sale. If it is wrong, damaged, or does not match what you submitted, that is a different matter: free replacement or a full refund, no postage fees, restocking fees or hidden charges, within 60 days of receiving it.
I typed a name wrong. What now? Contact us with your order number immediately. The piece matches what you submitted, so the returns policy does not cover it, but how much can be done depends on how far along the order is — before it ships there is far more room to help than after.
Is shipping tracked, and what does it cost? Yes, tracked the whole way, with an email as soon as it ships. Flat CA$9.95 to any Canadian address, free on orders over CA$139.
Do you offer a warranty? We publish a 60-day return and exchange window rather than a fixed-term warranty, and that window is what we commit to in writing. Canadian consumer protection law also applies and its terms differ from province to province.