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OGDENSBURG, N.Y. — Crow Smith greets the deliveryman there to unload a pile of packages from his truck.

The parcels and padded envelopes, many likely to contain holiday gifts, are loaded onto a trolley and rolled to the front of the warehouse.

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There, they will be sorted alphabetically and placed on shelves until the Canadians who ordered them drive south down Hwy. 416 from the Ottawa area and cross the border into Ogdensburg, N.Y.

Canadians have been increasingly shopping online, but scoring deals from U.S. retailers and getting them shipped right to their home has always been difficult, costly and sometimes impossible.

One reason is Canada has set its de minimis threshold — the maximum value of an item that Canadians can order from a foreign country without paying duties or taxes — at $20, which has not increased since 1985 and is one of the lowest in the world.

So people order packages to the U.S. instead, hoping to save sales taxes, customs duties and the brokerage fees they’d incur for items worth more than that.