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Restrictive Sales Practices on the Web?
"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."
The reason, as far as I can figure out - shipping costs, and paying appropriate taxes.
Even between the US and Canada, anything being shipped across the border gets taxes and a brokerage fee tacked on, and extra postage. Handling all of that for a wide range of countries, automatically, would be a logistical nightmare.
A simpler approach would be to set up a branch office in the target country and sell locally.
So true !!
But wait, I can't buy Yopy 3700 Linux PDA in US.
(The Yopy 3700 is developed in South Korea and is currently available in France, Austria and the UK for a MSRP of $499 US.)
Credit card clearinghouses charge more money to US companies for clearing international credit card transactions. Hence a lot of US retailers do not accept foreign credit cards for online orders.
...extend this list at will...
Fraud is more likely to occur on international shipments where the receiver is harder to track down.
Foreign people's credit information/scores are not easily available to US companies (this applies to financing options).
Music businesses may not yet have acquired the rights to distribute the music outside of the US. Local monopolies hamper global distribution.
There are issues with international shipping and customs. Customs may confiscate or return shipments. Export restrictions may prevent exporting certain technologies and goods.
--- Eat my sig.
The chargeback levels from some countries are enormous. When a country accounts for only 2% of your business but makes up 20% of your chargeback, it doesn't take a business genius to decide that country's purchases aren't worth it.
If you live outside the USA, it is harder to get any G4 or 5 because of the 1994 law that makes computers capable of 1 gigaflops or more classified as supercomputers. This means that you are restricted in exporting them, because they are classified as munitions-grade, which is because of their code-cracking abilities. So don't try to bring a Powerbook on your next trip to China, or you risk being prosecuted for illicit cryptographic export.
Your best bet is to look for a localized site so that it's not only easier for you to return the product but also save on postage.
It would probably be better to buy things from either European or Hungarian resellers. Instead of Amazon.com, use Amazon.co.uk. Instead of Dell.com, use Dell.hu IBM, again, use IBM.hu instead of IBM.com. Simple really.
IBM, Apple, and Dell probably have a channel for selling their products in Hungary, with agreements not to compete with those distributors. The distributors may not have a web presence, but that would be the Hungarian distributors' problem, not the manufacturers'.
Does that mean these sites should post a disclaimer listing the countries they don't ship to...oh, wait...
U.S. SALES ONLY
The Apple Store sells and ships products only within the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. No shipments can be made to APO or FPO addresses, United States territories, or addresses outside the United States. You may not export any products purchased at the Apple Store.
It is a pain in the ass to ship something overseas. A friend of mine tried to get some stuff shipped to him in India, and when the package arrived (no minor miracle in its own right) it had been opened and anything of value had been removed.
There is also the issue of licensing. We've had people call in from Canada and tried to buy our product, but do to a license agreement we had with another company, we aren't allowed to ship the product outside the US.
At one point the level of chargebacks almost drove me out of business. Imaging you selling so many copies and then a month or so later almost all of them get charged back!!
It leaves a pretty bad taste in the mouth.
Now, my friends and family in Jamaica will ask me to purchase stuff for them and ship it. I am glad to do it. The submitter better find some friends here that can do it for her/him.
Until the day comes around when the laws and financial instutions play catch up in those countries, we will always be reluctant to do business overseas.
Newsfollow.com
Someone's already doing it:
http://www.myus.com/
(I have not used them, just remembered seeing a company that does it, and a Google search revealed this one.)
Fraud from that area of the world is very bad
if you defraud them here they can make life miserable for you
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Bullcrap. I have used my US credit cards in England, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Jamaica, the Caymen Islands, Mexico, and Canada. No problems ever. One time they did call to verify some charges, but that was resolved quickly.
There are some for the Latin America which usually set a suite for you in Miami, handle the customs and ship to your address in Mexico/Argentina/whatever.
Not cheap though, it's better (if you can) to order directly from the stores - Outpost.com is nice for international shipment, Crucial.com is excellent ($20 express shipping to Mexico is great).
One of the brokers is SkyBox: skybox.net
Not as good as Deutche Post! The invented zip codes for cryin out loud.
I'm sorry but I don't see the basis for complaint in the original poster's musings. 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.
.com domain for themselves to offer their business internationally. Otherwise they really should consider sticking to a .co.uk, .com.au, .com.us, or wherever they do restrict their business to.
Of all the online stores that ship worldwide, I'm yet to see one of them charging in different currencies depending on their ship-to location. Pretty much all business charge in the currency of their own location, be it Canada, UK, USA, or wherever. The buyer pays whatever it costs to convert the currency. Fraud can be an issue, and often is, but many countries are at least as easy to prosecute fraud in as the USA, and it's not that hard to build up a "safe list" of countries. Shipping is easy, many of the standard shipping methods in the USA will ship internationally, they just charge a different rate--again, this is paid for by the buyer.
The web is planet wide. Not every company on the planet is obligated to do planet wide business to participate.
Certainly, but it's not unreasonable for the business that specifically choose a
Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
No major credit card company will validate a credit card from one country to the next.
WTF?
I have used my VISA in the US, Canada, Mexico, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
How this nonsense got modded up is beyond me.
damage, warranty (shipping costs and you have some chances that the product is damaged during transport)
international transactions taxes and costs (it is basically like converting money into another currency, you'll have to pay the banks for this operation even if it is virtual money, not real bills, one side is still paying using another currency)
increased costs for support (hotline, manuals, ...)
laws, you will have to ensure that your product is legal in other countries, it may sound easy but that may be difficult for products as children-related products, software which use encryption, ...
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, this company seems to cater exactly to people like you. They're a bit pricy though, by the looks of it, unless you're buying a lot of stuff.
Random and weird software I've written.
I beg to differ. UPS is more than happy to ship whatever my company wants to (rackmount servers in our case), wherever we want to. We're a Seattle-based company, but ship our machines somewhat regularly (meaning at least 1-2 per month - not many, but it's more than most of our competitors are willing to do) all over the world - Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Denmark, etc. The most we've had trouble with are customs agents who like to open up machines (disregarding the "warranty void if removed" stickers) to check for bombs and other unlikely things. Granted, it costs several hundred dollars to send a machine overseas (UPS doesn't have a "slow" internaltional option), and many people aren't willing to fork over the cash, but it's far from difficult.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
I remember reading in a Business 2.0 or some other high-tech business magazine that transatlantic shipments of packaged goods *average* 20% loss rates. This is shipments of goods from the US to Europe. Not Africa. Not Asia. Not South America. Europe. The article sited a number of reasons, including fraud (it seems that credit card fraud is harder to catch with transatlantic shipments) to post office theft to simple lost packages.
Oh, and my experience with the German and UK posts are that the US is generally every bit as good if not better than European postal services. Of course, you must realize that the distance from El Paso (Texas) to Beaumont (still Texas...we're just in one state!!!) is farther than the distance from Edinburgh to Rome. In my experience, most of the European postal services are top notch when delivering intra-country. But I've had better luck with prompt and reliable delivery sending stuff within the than shipping from France to Scotland.
--Be human.
The only countries I suspect an average American knows is USSR/Russia, France, Italy, and England. And Australia, I suppose. And for good reason. There is not one good thing from knowing where a European country is if one doesn't care.
So, you admit that the average American doesn't know where their largest (non-American continental) trading partner is?
Or the second largest?
Or the third largest?
Here's the answers for those of you who are American:
#1 Japan
#2 China
#3 Germany
A lot of people seem to think that selling internationally involves shipping a product and accepting a payment. It's not that simple. Every country has customs inspectors who are charged with making sure that whatever is shipped inot the country is legal and has appropriate tarrifs paid. So you have to have an import license to ship some kinds of things. And then there's the tax issue. If I sell something in Germany, I own the German government a VAT. (17% as I recall.) So you have to be prepared to deal with that. Most companies export their products to local sales subsidiaries at a transfer price, which substantially lowers the tax consequences and moves the profit from the US to the foreign operation. Yada Yada Yada.
Selling internationally and meeting the legal requirements of both the selling and receiving countries is not easy.
--Hi. I'm in Portland and it's raining. This appears to be a permanent condition.
When I occasionally see something I want on ebay, the seller has usually listed it 'US Only' or just as bad, seems to have found the most expensive possible means of shipping.
:(
Being a poor student who lives in New Zealand, I just send a note to the seller asking if they'd be willing to sell to me, but most importantly, including details of USPS's Global Priority Mail - Flat-rate Envelope (large) which is US$9, and asking if they'd be willing to send the item (usually books) in that, and that I'll be paying by Paypal (maybe not the best, but the most accepted).
Most sellers are just worried about the hassle of shipping, and making sure they get paid. If I make it easy for them, most people have no problem.
Of course, getting a company to do so is a whole different ball game.
---- I've fallen, and I can't get up.
ok, i accept that reasoning for Hungary.
but what about Canada? i live in Vancouver and it seems like a majority of online retailers based in the US won't ship here! i mean... i live less than 3 hours away from Seattle (by car) but Seattle-based online retailers won't ship stuff to me. what a joke.
there must be something else.
One thing to keep in mind is that the governments of some countries are quite anal about declared value, shipping documents, etc. Unreasonable VAT can also be a major hurdle for those in non-US countries trying to import goods, especially expensive electronics. I wish I had a penny for every time one of our customers requested that we place a much lower value on a Commercial Invoice so their VAT would be lower. VAT also made the return/repair process a nightmare (which we did regularly).
With that in mind, I can understand why a vendor would want their goods to be purchased through one of their regional offices/distributors.
***
Radio Shack. You've got questions...we've got blank stares(TM).
*sigh* Hungary is NOT a 3rd world country. It is a first world country. That's right. There is no such thing as a 2nd world country anymore, btw, because there is no soviet union anymore, and the definition of 2nd world depended on the existance of a superpower to rival the US. And no, I can't name every country out there. One thing you must consider though, is that there are more countries in the world than states in the US. Can you name all of the states in the US? Without any help? Go for it. Even for Americans this is tough, apparently. Most get 45 or so and can't think of the rest (there are 50, if you need a hint).
====
Crudely Drawn Games
While air travelers can bring SARS with them halfway around the globe in hours, they can't bring their Dell laptop. Not legally anyway - Dell customers have a contractual obligation not to do so.
I don't know if that's still the case, but it was when I decided against purchasing a Dell so I could work during a long trip to Canada. I lived in California at the time.
Compaq, on the other hand, will not service a U.S. purchased unit outside the U.S. I was very happy doing my development on my Compaq Presario 1800T while living in Newfoundland the year of my wedding, but the unit failed and I had to send it back for service.
Good thing I had a recent backup.
First, Compaq Canada wouldn't service it because, although Compaq sells Presarios in Canada, they didn't sell that model. They connected me to the U.S. support center.
The U.S. support center wouldn't accept shipment from Canada, not even if I paid the shipping. There was no question of them expediting me a shipping container and getting it picked up after I packed my laptop. They simply said it had to be shipped from within the U.S.
Newfoundland is a long way from anywhere in the U.S. While it is geographically considered part of North America, it is actually an island separated from the mainland by a seven-hour ferry ride. Air travel to the U.S. from Newfoundland is quite expensive.
What I did was ask my client very nicely to FedEx me a check, paying me in advance for work I hadn't done yet, then I bought a brand-new Pentium III box from a screwdriver shop in St. John's. I restored my backup onto it and continued work until my next trip to the U.S., several months later.
I finally brought my dead Compaq to my parents' when I visited them for thanksgiving, in the U.S. Only then would Compaq agree to repair my laptop. But I had to fly back to Canada before Compaq returned it. They wouldn't return it to Canada either - they sent it to my parents' house. Then I had to ask my mom to FedEx me the laptop. FedExing a laptop is expensive.
The icing on the cake was that although Compaq had agreed to do a warranty repair, they said I voided my warranty by installing Windows NT, BeOS and Linux on it - the Presario came with Win98. They charged me $400 for a new motherboard.
They did so just as the dot-com crash started to affect my consulting business. It took several months for me to raise the money for the repair, during which my dead laptop was stored in Compaq's repair facility. They telephoned me periodically to ask about the money, and each time I said I was working on it.
Then, when I finally sent them their damn check, they asked for my authorization to "rebrick" my laptop. They wanted to erase my hard drive and put a factory-fresh Win98 installation on it. I had lots of files (not my development work) that weren't backed up. I didn't give them permission, but was very anxious until I got the laptop shipped by my mom, with my files, Windows NT, Linux and BeOS still intact.
By the time I was able to pay for the repair, I'd moved back to the U.S., to Maine. But they wouldn't ship to anywhere but the address the laptop came from. So my mom had to FedEx the laptop from Washington to Maine.
I will never, ever purchase a Compaq product again.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Texas is huge, but you're off by quite a bit. It's roughly 850 miles from Beaumont to El Paso (the I-10 milage sign in Orange, closer to the Louisiana border, reads 867, iirc). Edinburgh to Rome is something like 1200 miles (straight line).
But then again, I could be wrong.
Second, The main reason that most online merchants block orders from certain countries is because of the HIGH fraud originating from these countries.
Free Instant Site Inclusion
Manufacturers are definitely not happy about that, but they're treading on very thin ice here.
In fact Volkswagen got slapped with a record fine for uncompetitive behaviour.
They where also the ones that thretened their north Italian dealers with revoking dealership privileges if they sell to Swiss customers.
The EU frowns most definitely on such uncompetitive behavior, so I really can't imagine legislation to support price gouging.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
It costs money and time and expertise to establish a world-wide shipping channel. You have to know a lot more about international trade law, and liabilities in cases of returns/exchanges/credits are much more complex.
My friend has order parts from Australia (we live in Canada). There seems to be no problems for Australia to ship around the world.
the un classification system is pretty much completely out of date. I believe the only term currently in use is 3rd world, and it often has a negative connotation.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World
I'm glad that not knowing anything didn't stop you from posting.
.....
First, you must be able to ship there.
With exception of Burma, Siera Leone, North Korea and other countries with active civil wars and a complete lack of Government,
you can ship anywhere in the world with ease. I have shipped packages from Australia to Britain, France, China and Japan without the slightest difficulty. To ship to Hungary is more expensive and takes longer, but still can be done. The only country I've had trouble with shipping is the United States of America. And that's usually been recieving, not sending.
OK, maybe that's no problem, though the unit cost'll be pretty high and insurance may be necessary (and also pretty expensive) because of package loss problems mentioned in other threads.
True, the United States Postal Service is extremely poor by First World standards. Even China has a more reliable postal service.
Second, you must know what duties and taxes to pay on the shipment. And you'll have to keep up as tariffs change. This must be done for each country that you want to ship to.
With very few exceptions, duties and taxes are payed by THE RECEIVER. Again, duties and taxes are payed BY THE RECIEVER.
Third, warranties: If you're a retailer like Amazon, you may not have much say in removing warranties. Additionally, different countries have different laws about how much warranty is inherent (as do different states in the U.S., and for that matter, probably different states, provinces, federal districts, etc. in other countries). So you'll need a legal framework (for each country/region/province/whatever, mind you) to handle the finer points of warranty law; this must also be kept up to date with the most recent laws.
There are no international warranties. Warranties apply to goods in the country from which they are sold. That way, when you buy a gadget on your next overseas holiday, there is no requirement on the retailer to provide a warranty in your home country (duh). They are only required to provide a valid warranty in the country of sale.
It's one thing if you've got a presence in the country. But if you don't, it's probably not that reasonable to try to ship to that country.
Wow, I guess the ~$10-20 BILLION in goods that my country ships internationally each year without offices overseas is just a small group of unreasonable people, or could it be INTERNATIONAL TRADE ?????????????
Sheesh
>>
I am the director, and this is my movie
I've worked for some major e-commerce sites (unfortunately I can't name them), but they're top-10 outfits. On the inside of these businesses, there are huge mechanisms in place specifically to deal with credit card fraud. Romania was the number one when I was involved -- basically every transaction that could be connected in any way to Romania was assumed bad -- but Hungary was on the list as well.
The incredible volume of credit card and other kinds of fraud occurring in this handful of countries basically created a kind of sour taste in these businesses' mouths. Pretty much the only two trusted non-US sites were the UK and Canada.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Hmm. Things sent from other countries to me in the UK arrive every time. EVERY time.
That includes stuff sent from mainland Europe, the far east, and the USA.
The British national mail service is cheaper, more efficient and faster than the US one.
Incidentally, quoting distances is completely pointless. To get a package from El Paso to Beaumont you go to the post office in El Paso, pay, they put it in a bag, it goes to a sorting office, gets put into another bag, gets stuck on a plane, gets taken to a sorting office in Beaumont, gets put into another bag and then someone delivers it.
To get from Rome to Edinburgh you're looking at a similar process, except that there may well be multiple aircraft involved, more sorting offices, and negotiations between two entirely different postal services.
It's just not a valid comparison.
I'd say the US postal service is no better than European ones - very capable when delivering within its region of operations, and suffers problems otherwise. Sending stuff to America is every bit as dodgy as sending stuff from America to here..
~Cederic
Tolls at Customs: I recently shipped myself software that I had bought in the US a few years ago. When you ship things internationally you have to note the value. I was charged about 30% of the value that I notated in order to get my own possessions back from the post office. Companies also have to pay import fees and they vary by country. Often they also have to pay sales tax in the country in question. Unless you want to piss your customer off with unexpected expenses, you have to include this in the price you state up front.
Export laws -- The US prohibits the export of certain types of goods to certain countries. The laws are often complex and subject to interpretation. Some companies choose not to hire an expert to look at questions of this nature alone. These companies have to limit the countries in which they will sell. It may well be that the easiest way to deal with this is to only sell in the US.
Warranties -- in Germany electronic goods are required to be warrantied against failure for 3 years. If you read through one of those warranty books that is printed in several languages, and you are multi-lingual, you'll notice that the warranties have contents which vary by language. Some companies don't make their goods to last 3 years, and as such don't want to be subject to warranty law in Germany. These companies don't sell their goods in Germany. I imagine that a lot countries have highly varying warranty law. If I were a business person, I wouldn't be willing to go blind into that potential mine field. I would either choose not to go, or hire someone who knows the territory.
Varying demand curves -- People in different cultures have different average incomes and differing desires to buy a product. This leads to varying intersection points between the supply and demand curves. A company that wants to earn more money won't just choose an average from the global market -- they'll adjust their prices locally to reflect local demand. In order to do this though, they need to isolate the markets. This means that the web-sites need to become country specific. We can argue about morality, but it's not illegal to run a business this way, so many businesses do.
Oh and your argument that US salespersons/websites should direct international customers to the sales site set up for them runs face first into the problem the original poster stated -- that the local product offering may not include the product the customer wants. It also may be selling locally for a higher price than it does in the US.
www.apple.hu
store.apple.hu (Apple Store in Hungary)
Have fun. Bring someone who reads Hungarian. :)
on the other hand, amazon japan seem to be all for shipping things to the US, though - any maybe to other countries like hungary too; so maybe give them a try.
It might be a better idea to try Amazon UK if you're in Hungary, as opposed to Amazon Japan. If nothing else, the shipping would be cheaper. It's what people do in Israel, anyway.
--Dan
Not you can't. Some countries without active civil wars or US Trade embargoes have serious problems with mail. My own family in Trinidad & Tobago (a small island near Cuba) know all too well how people working in corrupt postal offices will open up boxes if it looks like there's something good in them and then keep it for themselves. That is why we always send gifts and packages back and forth with relatives who are personally travelling to the country instead of through the mail. I know that the same thing happens in the Philippines as well. It probably happens in a lot of other coutries too. A reliable mail system is something that we in first world countries take for granted.
Sigh... nobody posted this, as far as I'm aware:
A comparison matrix of the 6 major Mail Forwarding Services.
They all work the same way: They give you an US address, and everything shipped to this address is forwarded to your real address anywhere in the world.
Have fun!
Sigh... nobody posted this, as far as I'm aware:
A comparison matrix of the 6 major Mail Forwarding Services.
They all work the same way: They give you an US address, and everything shipped to this address is forwarded to your real address anywhere in the world.
Have fun!
Back in early 1999, I was involved in a business venture with my roommate. We opened an online music store to sell electronica vinyl and CDs. Our goal was to offer an alternative to the 800lb gorilla (Satellite Records).
Fast forward to mid-2000. Sales were starting to increase significantly and my roommate's wife began to run the store full-time (my friend and I still had normal dot-com day jobs). We used Worldpay, or some other international credit card processing and verification service. Over a 4 or 5 week period in the summer we got orders of $100, $200, $300. Record bags and orders of 20+ records. At the time, this was relatively normal as business was picking up. The credit cards were all checked through the service (matched 1st line of mailing address, city, state, zip/postal, country).
Suddenly, in one day we got about $900 in chargebacks on 2 or 3 cards. All were orders placed in the Czech Republic and as far as we knew, the order information was verified. Over the course of several days we received more chargebacks as people received statements. When all was said and done, about 4 cards were used. We incurred about $3000 in damage because of it.
The credit card processing company was less than helpful, and the FBI even got involved as it was an international fraud case. We never got any money back, no one was ever caught, and ultimately this relatively small case of fraud caused us to close up shop a few months later.
The whole experience definitely soured my ambition in wanting to reach a global audience. We sold a lot of records to people in England, France, and Belgium. I'd estimate 60% of our sales initially were from overseas, but thinking back it's probably because no on else would sell to them. Perhaps things have changed since then, but there is no cheap, easy, or compelling reason for anyone that isn't Amazon or Outpost to sell to people overseas. Logistically it's a huge pain in the ass and as I learned first hand, it can also be devastating.
Why is that?
Because by doing that you and the forwarder assume much of the legal and financial responsibility.
For example, if it was illegal to export some item from the US to your country, it is the you and the forwarder who are responsible, not Thinkgeek.
We've tried to be as flexible as possible.
We'll take personal checks, so long as they carry North American routing codes (those magnetic ink OCR numbers on the bottom of the check). That's good for anyone who has a bank in the US (such as servicemen, state dept. workers, etc., and folks working overseas for their company), plus Can/Mex and a few other countries. We don't take TeleCheck at this time.
And international postal money orders are good as gold.
But we won't ship until we've received it, and probably not until we've cleared a personal check.
The one thing I forgot to mention is how fraud resistant our store is because of one reason: Who wants to steal kids' books? They're heavy to ship, low in value, and not easily fenced. It's when someone orders 10 copies of each of the Adventures of TinTin or Asterix and Obelix collections (European comic strips), or dictionaries and almanacs, that we know something fishy may be going on.
Design for Use, not Construction!
My company www.streamzap.com does ship to as many countries as possible, but here are the many challenges we face which may explain why others just don't bother:
1. Unless you do a ton of shipping, the major carriers (UPS/Fedex/DHL/Airborne) charge about $50 USD to send a 1 lb package to most countries. What customer is willing to pay this much for S&H?
2. The only reasonably cost effective method is US Air Mail. US Air Mail does not have reasonable insurance rates (At some point I looked into tracking and/or insurance, but this brings the cost closer to the UPS/Fedex rates).
3. International packages require filling out customs forms... BY HAND (USPS claims to be beta testing a way to print these by computer, but they have been claiming this for over a year now). This costs another few $bucks$ in time for an employee (incrasing the already high S&H costs for the customer)
4. Credit card fraud
About 90% of my incidents of credit card fraud come from International orders. This is not to imply that people outside of the US are more scrupulous than Americans. I would guess most countries have a similar rate of fraud; However when you commit inter-country fraud, it's nearly impossible to find and prosecute the criminal due to the sheer costs involved.
5. Credit card companies don't give a shit about fraud because they just make the vendor of the goods ("merchant") not only refund the money charged, but they also pay an extra $20 fee just for the "trouble" we made the credit card company go through in processing the fraud claim. In other words--ALL RISK of fraud is passed on to the vendor. One indicent of fraud costs you:
a. Lost goods
b. Lost $ from S&H
c. Charges from credit card company
d. Wasted time
Even if you could tell the credit card company every detail about the criminal (where they live, IP address, real name, etc..), it means nothing to them. Why should they bother to investigate it when they can just charge the merchant all of the costs of fraud? As you can see this is a broken system. There is currently a class action suit in progress against the credit cards surrounding this. And I hope they get sued up the ass for it.
6. Customs & import taxes Many customers will end up being charged an additional tax and/or their packages will be delayed for weeks OR MONTHS by customs. Invariably the customer thinks the vendor is at fault for this and should refund their money 100%. (Tip: Don't even bother shipping to Belgium--you'll be lucky if 1% of your packages get through)
7. Accounting and shipping software is not usually set up to handle International addresses. Every country has a different way of writing addresses. And most (reasonably priced) programs don't handle them well.
Overall, it's still worth it for us to ship overseas (i.e we make more money than we lose).. but there are many challenges and frustrations, so I can see why many vendors don't bother.
Jonah
www.streamzap.com