Many US companies do a great deal of business with Canadian customers
. With large cities like Toronto being as close as many other American cities, it just makes sense for many organizations to look at these centers as sources of potential customers. The only hurdle to doing business in Canada is that as your Atlanta delivery service will let you know, there are some extra financial barriers to shipping when you have to send your products into another country.
It's not like shipping to Toronto is going to be as expensive as shipping overseas. The proximity of its location to the US means that both ground and air shipping rates should be fairly reasonable. The extra costs that you're going to be faced with have to do with the legalities of moving products over international borders, not with the simple distance that you're shipping your goods.
Taxes are going to be the first thing that you're going to have to pay for. Whenever you ship something into a region with different tax laws, you have to pay those taxes on your products. In the case of shipping to Toronto, that means that you're going to have to pay any federal Canadian taxes, as well as any provincial taxes assessed by the province of Ontario. These have recently been combined in that province into a single HST, or harmonized sales tax. You can expect to have to pay the HST of 13% on most products that you ship to Toronto.
Shipping to Toronto isn't going to be possible without a customs broker. Customs brokers charge a flat fee on every shipment that you ask them to process. If you're shipping to Toronto regularly, this can get very expensive unless you take a hint from companies that have a great deal of experience shipping internationally. By combining smaller loads into a larger shipment then distributing the loads once they are in Canada, you can save money on many brokerage fees.
Sometimes there may be some other costs associated with shipping to Toronto as well. These usually have to do with specific duties and fees which are assessed to certain types of products but not others. Your courier company is going to be your best resource regarding these types of extra fees. You can plan with them ahead of your actual shipping time to better estimate what your actual shipping costs will be.