Sadly, my Canon Powershot A570 IS camera kicked the bucket over the weekend. It’s now unwilling to reliably extend and retract the lens; since that’s sort of a vital function, it’s not strictly usable or reliable in its current state. The good news is Canon will repair it (it’s under warranty, after all), so all I had to do to kick start that process was ship it to them so they can check it out and fix the beast.

I have an account with DHL, a very good shipping company and courier, who are a decent amount cheaper than FedEx and UPS, and more reliable (and faster … heh, go figure). In many cases they’re even faster/cheaper than the United States Postal Service for similar service (in-state, DHL is cheaper by about fifty cents and faster, as in “it’s there the day after you send it,” than the USPS’ Priority Mail service, which can take up to a week despite the short distance). Since their offering met Canon’s requirements for the shipment (must include tracking and shipment must be insured for actual camera cost), they were my first choice to get this thing into Canon’s hands.

The bummer was I didn’t have the right size box or the packing materials to adequately protect the camera on its way in for repairs. I figured I could swing by the drop-off spot I use for normal DHL shipments, buy a box and some bubble wrap from them, and have them ship it themselves. I’ll never do that again.

While the shop’s packaging materials were fairly cheap (two bucks for a box and some bubble wrap isn’t a colossal ripoff), they really bent me over on the shipping. Had I just sent it myself with my own DHL account, the shipment would have cost a whopping $6.50. This place charged $12.04 for the same exact shipment (I just punched in all the info from their own receipt/copy of the waybill and got my own quote to confirm). Spending $14.15 to have a camera less than six months old serviced under warranty annoys me, but if it comes back in working order, I’ll accept it and move on. And I probably won’t be buying any of Canon’s smaller cameras anymore — they’re just too fragile. Since eventually I want to move up to a digital SLR anyway, I’ll be in a different market by the time I’m ready for a new camera in a few years.

The lesson learned here is it’s ultimately worth it to always keep a few of the boxes that random stuff you order online shows up in, because it can be reused to send to someone else if you need to. It also pays to deal with the shipping companies yourself, and skip these stupid shipping shops. They can’t resist skimming some pure profit off the part of the business they have the least direct involvement in.

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