A Canadian Expierence ordering from Jackson's Art (2026)

EI give this shop 9 out of 10 acorns.

As a Canadian, international shipping is a pain so I generally avoid Europe.  Our duty free limit is about $20CAD for most countries.  More than that and we not only have to pay tax, handling charges, we might also have to pay duty.  For most individuals shopping, these fees are easily unpredictable and can more than double the cost of an item.  It really sucks to be Canadian sometimes.  

Canadians also pay some of the highest prices for fine art supplies than anyone else in the world.  So much, that it's often cheaper to buy fancy, professional grade, handmade in Canada paints like Kama oilcolour and Beam Paint watercolours than it is to by the student grade Winsor & Newton (Winton and Cotman) at our local stores.  Due to it being 2026, the cost of art supplies in Canada is skyrocketing.  

When my local fine art supply shop stopped selling a brand, the brand I use the most, I started looking around for somewhere that matched my ethos and my budget.

Jackson's Art seems just that sort of shop.

Navigation:

Their website is easy to get around and very obvious on how to buy paints.  When we give them the shipping postal code, it keeps a running tally on how much the shipping will cost.  Surpringily, it's very close to the actual cost of postage - normally shops charge 10 to 200 times the postage when shipping from Europe to Canada.   Jackson's... given their volume discount, it's probably about actual shipping cost plus less than the packaging cost.  (but there's more cost later - and later in the review I'll cover that)

I also really like how they don't have free shipping when we buy over a certain amount.  A lot of shops pad their prices elsewhere to compensate for their "free" shipping.

The only bugbear for navigating this site is that it will often give a note like "oh noses, it looks like you are in Canada, let me take you to the Canadian version of this page" then it sends us back to the home page.  I was on the Canadian version.  Why you keep doing this to me?

Shipping is reasonable price.

Packaging is lovely.  I don't know what the peanuts are made from (milk or soy by the way my skin reacts) but the boxes are great and everything arrived in tip top condition.  


I choose post office shipping for 2 reasons.

1. I have a PO box and that is in a climate control building.  No sitting in the hot sun or freezing cold in a community mail box for me.  

A flex delivery address would be just as good.  Ask your post office for one.  It's like a po box without paying extra.

2. Canada post has the most sensible stance towards processing customs and duty stuff of any shipping company.  A lot (and I'm looking directly at you, UPS) will charge brokerage fees, handling fees, pre-handling fees... and 14 different fees on top of the gst/pst owed)

If the order is over $20CAD (at time of entering Canada) Canada Post has a flat rate processing fee of something like $10 (at time of writing) when an item owes money on entering Canada.  Add to that the normal taxes we didn't pay on checkout (GST, PST, HST, whatever-ST).  Paints got processed as "cosmetics" for some reason.  

Budget about $20 fees and tax on a 100 dollar order of just paint in 2026

Brushes on the other hand had a massive duty charge of about 100% what I paid.  Again, the customs declaration was a bit odd as these were labeled "mic house improvement supplies".  Google says artist paint brushes have 0% duty.  But I got these on sale, so double what I paid is still less than buying locally.  

If I were to be a regular customer, I would probably contact customs and ask them how the sender can better clarify what's in the parcel.   For now, I know not to buy brushes from Jackson's again.


HELP
I had an issue with one of my orders and I reached out to Jackson's to clarify something for me.  Trying to get help was a nightmare.  I tried to get the timing right so it was about 3 in the afternoon in the UK, by the time I got the help bot to connect me to a real human, it was gone 5pm and after waiting half an hour more, I gave up.  The system kept kicking me back to the home page due to me not being on the Canadian version of the site... but I never left the Canadian version of the site.  I ended up trying a second time and I don't know which version got through to them.  A real human sent me an email about 24 hours later which is soon enough to be happy.  

But overall, i spent about 4 hours on this topic, and I'm not convinced it's resolved to my satisfaction.   But it's too small a money to make any further fuss about, so we'll see when I get to reviewing that product.


They have a loyalty system with points or something I don't really want to take the time to understand.  My local art shop does that too.  I feel indifferent towards it, but might like it if I got to know it better.

Jackson's also has a lot of sales at ten to twenty percent off.  Something is always on sale, so it's worth waiting for the thing we need to be on sale.


PERMACULTURE!
I talked about how the company seems to match my ethos.  A bit more about that for you.

And I just discovered the packing peanuts are starch and home compostable.  



When buying local or making it ourselves isn't an option, this seems to be a very good permaculture choice.



I can see buying from there again for supplies I can't get locally.  The price definitely makes it worth while.  

I think I'll do the reviews for the individual Jackson's name brand products separately as some are lovely and some... well, I want to give it a fighting chance before I paint my chicken and write the review.