Landed cost vs sticker price for motorcycle gear
The CA$500 helmet at a US retailer is rarely CA$500 at your door. Shipping, duty, and currency conversion routinely add 25-40%. Here's how landed-cost comparison works and how ALLR computes it.
Most price comparison tools show you the sticker price — the number on the retailer's product page. For motorcycle gear bought across borders, that number is wrong. The actual cost at your door routinely runs 25-40% higher once shipping, duty, and currency conversion get added at checkout. Landed cost is the number you actually pay, and it's the only number worth comparing.
What goes into landed cost
Landed cost is the sum of four things: the sticker price (in the retailer's currency), shipping to your address, customs duty (when the package crosses a border), and currency conversion to your local currency. None of these are visible on the retailer's product page until you hit checkout — by which point you've already invested mental energy in the choice.
The retailer's billing currency matters separately from the country it ships from. A US retailer can bill USD and not collect Canadian duty (you pay it at the border, or rather UPS/FedEx pays it and adds a brokerage fee). A European retailer can bill in CAD with no duty (because they've registered as a Canadian importer and absorbed the duty into their price). Both can show the same sticker; only the latter is actually CA$500 at your door.
Why duty isn't a flat percentage
Canadian customs treats motorcycle gear as multiple HS-code categories depending on what it is. Helmets fall under 6506.10 (1.7-7% duty for non-NAFTA origin). Leather jackets fall under 4203.10 (15%+). Synthetic textile jackets fall under 6202 (12-18% varying by lining). Boots fall under 6403 (17-18%). The same brand selling a jacket and a helmet has very different duty math on each — and the retailer's checkout reflects this if you're lucky, or leaves you to discover it at the border if you're not.
ALLR knows the HS-code category for every product we track. The landed-cost calc applies the right duty rate per item, plus shipping (which retailers themselves quote, when they quote it accurately), plus current Bank of Canada / ECB exchange rates updated twice a day. You see the total at the top of every product page.
The two cases where landed cost actually matters
Case 1 — same product, cross-border arbitrage. The Alpinestars S-R7 retails US$549 at the US Alpinestars store. With shipping (US$22), duty at 6.5% on the US$549 base (US$36), and USD→CAD at 1.37 (US$549 + US$22 = US$571 × 1.37 = CA$782), the landed total is roughly CA$830 by the time it lands. The same helmet at FortNine in Canada sells for CA$749, no duty (already imported), no currency conversion. That's the math AI Overviews can't surface from product titles alone.
Case 2 — currency-of-billing trick. Some European retailers (Motostorm, Motardinn, ChromeBurner) bill in your local currency and absorb duty into the displayed price. The sticker looks comparable to a US retailer's, but you don't get the surprise UPS brokerage fee. Their effective landed cost can be lower than an apparently-cheaper US sticker. Compare the totals, not the stickers.
What ALLR does about it
Every product page on ALLR shows landed cost — sticker + shipping + duty + FX conversion — for the country you've selected. The default is Canada because that's where the project started; the country picker in the top-right re-runs the calc for the US, EU, or UK. The landed total is what you'll pay, not an estimate.
Two limits to be honest about. (1) Shipping cost is what the retailer quotes; we don't simulate a checkout. Most retailers quote accurately, but a few (especially European ones) charge by weight at checkout, so a heavy item may push the actual total CA$10-30 above what we display. (2) Duty rates are post-USMCA / CETA, but specific items occasionally have anti-dumping duty add-ons we don't track. Both edges are documented in the Help section.
See it in action
Browse a category and watch the landed total flip as you change the country: helmets (HS 6506.10, 1.7-7% duty), leather jackets (HS 4203.10, 15%+), boots (HS 6403, 17-18%), gloves. Or pick any specific product — the price row at the top is the landed total, not the sticker. Cross-border arbitrage opportunities are flagged with a country switch suggestion.
If you want the cross-border buying flow explained end-to-end with worked examples: Buying motorcycle gear from Europe to Canada and Buying motorcycle gear from Europe to the United States walk through real product paths step-by-step (HTSUS / CETA codes, broker fees, USPS vs UPS landed-cost differences).