It's a fee that ups and fedex charges to make sure customs collects the duties.
Basically, they are charging you for the customs service. It's not included in their ground shipping quotes. Almost everything comes out of the states ups ground since it the cheapest way, until it gets to your door. Brokerage is included on ups air iirc. But (of course) that costs more.
For example:
http://www.ups.com/media/en/ca/rate_guide_ca.pdf
FedEx is the same.
Usps does not charge brokerage fees, but most businesses don't ship usps since ups and fedex pickup at the sellers place of business and usps does not.
Goes like this:
You pay the up front shipping costs.
Ups pics up the package and starts shipping.
It hits the border and they take it to customs.
Customs levies the taxes and duties (as required) and ups pays them. Then they levee a fee for this (ie: brokerage) and then they levee a COD charge since they've paid to get it into the country.
Then they hand it off to their Canadian partnered courier service and it shows up at the door.
You open the door happy as a pig in....
Then he hands you a bill for the duties, brokerage and COD fees and you don't get your package until your pay up.
If you don't believe me, ask any Canadian that has shipped ups out of the states. Or google brokerage + ups + Canada and be prepared to read some pretty angry commentary.
It's a racket as I've yet to see an automotive part be leveed any customs. But they still charge you the brokerage fees since they handed it customs.
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