Restrictive Sales Practices on the Web?

Ed Almos asks: "I don't know about other Slashdot readers, who happen to live outside the US, but I'm in Hungary, and am finding it more and more difficult to purchase goods and services over the web. The sites are there, the money is in my account, but the sites won't sell me anything! Can someone come up with a logical reason for these policies? Last time I checked I was using the WORLD Wide Web, and there seems little point wasting bandwidth to post your website to the world when only those living in the USA can buy and/or use the product. Then again, is this yet another example of the Internet and the rest of the world becoming more and more centered on the continental USA? The final irony? I'm originally from Maine. These folk won't even sell to one of their own!"

"Here are a few examples:

IBM, Apple and Dell operate web stores that sell almost their entire range of kit, they only ship to the USA. Power Notebooks have the same policy but cite different reasons (see below). Some manufacturers have local country websites but these offer a restricted range compared to the main site.

Apple has their new iTunes system. As I am outside the USA they will not let me logon to the system.

Amazon.com are willing to sell me books but nothing else.

The reasons for this policy range from the (almost) reasonable to the downright silly. Amazon cite difficulties with warranty returns as their reason and while most of the rest won't tell me why they don't want my business Power Notebooks told me that recent anti-terrorist legislation stops them from exporting equipment. Quite why they cannot export a notebook originally manufactured in the Far East is beyond me.

Getting the kit to me in Hungary is no problem either. FedEx and UPS have local offices and if that fails there is always the Hungarian Postal Service. Shipping time from the USA can be as short as two working days, I know this because my company obtains spares from the USA for our products."

Comments

Don't you have friends?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're from Maine, surely you have friends/family still living in the US-- why don't you have them buy your shit and ship it to you, and you send them a check or something?

Sheesh!

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[Brad Mace]

perhaps these sites should be required to have domain names ending in .us?

Re:BECOMING more US Centric?

[1u3hr]

It costs MONEY to, for instance do business in Hungary, handle transactions and currancy conversions, and deal with fraud. If a particular market doesn't offer enough profit to justify the expense, that market simply isn't worth doing business with.

If you have a credit card, they handle all that (and stiff the customer by several percent with a bad rate -- but the vendor gets US dollars). Having dealt with American companies, I know they believe the rest of the world uses cowry shells as a medium of exchange, but believe me, that's not true. Even more arrogant, if an American company wants to buy something from overseas, they become hightly bewildered when you say you can't accept their cheque on the San Peso Savings and Loan. Trying to get them to actually send a foreign currency is just absurd -- they think it's unpatriotic to use money with someone else's president on it. Foreign companies lose either buying or selling to the US.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[danila]

Look, I usually don't care about "customer service", I care about buying a product. I am going to great lengths already to find the products 10000+ km from my home and you think that your lack of Russian-language skills would bother me? Not the slightest bit. I am even willing to ignore the warranty (I don't want the PITA sending the product back to the States) and would be more than happy to pay the local repair shop to fix it. Liability is also a non-issue, unless your notebook jumps on my little sister and chops her head off. If I am buying from the States, I already accept the delay - having to wait a week more until the money are in your account is not a problem either (and I would happily send a check or transfer the money instead of using a credit card, which I don't have anyway). Most people also understand (or can be made to understand) that customs are their own problem.

So in the end, there is nothing to prevent almost any company from sending their products abroad. And there is defenitely a market potential for the intermediaries like Pregrad.Net who take care of international orders for their customers. Why it is not done yet? May be because capitalist society is inherently ineffective in taking care of the customers? Or may be because Americans are not aware that there are other countries on this planet. Yeah, whatever the reason. :)

Re:BECOMING more US Centric?

[BlueWonder]

You do know that the US is where DARPAnet began, right? that little network that was the precursor of the internet?

Do you propose that companies that aren't prepared to undertake the expense and risk involved in doing business with every last country on the planet not be able to do business on the web?

I cannot follow your logic. Do you propose that, since DARPAnet was invented in the USA, only US companies should do business on the web?

As others have already said, the WWW was invented in Switzerland, so one could equally well argue that only Swiss companies should do business on the web... ;-)

Mod this submitter (-1, dumbass)

[vasqzr]

Hungary web site for DELL

Who is this guy kidding?