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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."
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.
Most small companies can't be bothered to grow that kind of capability, as the short-sighted shareholders (public or private) won't accept the large up-front cost in that kind of expansion.
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If US companies are too silly to ship to your country, why not start your own e-commerce site? Lease a warehouse in the US, have them ship to that, and then fly it over daily and fulfill your own orders...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I'd imagine that a lot of small companies don't want to deal with this sort of thing. Why a larger company wouldn't, I don't know.
AccountKiller
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'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.
I'm a little suprised that Hungary is on the list of "not worth it", but perhaps that's not universal.
The web is planet wide. Not every company on the planet is obligated to do planet wide business to participate.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
So they should only put their website up on the USA Wide Web? I'd like to know how to access that.
If i find site that won't ship to me, i'll be unhappy, and maybe try to convince them otherwise, but i'm not going to demand that they leave and go make their own damn web.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I know, I know...what a crime it is that most places only ship to the US because that's where 99.8%* of the potential market that would actually buy the widget you want is, but instead of blaming websites for selling to their largest market, shouldn't you be complaining that there aren't enough Hungary-based web sites that well sell you stuff locally. ...How did this make the front page?
*Please note that 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot, including mine.
Why are you visiting american websites? Aren't there any Hungarian internet stores to buy from? If not, opening one up could prove profitable.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
EU taxes?
...need more, let me know. I've been around this tree over and over, for years now.
Hightened security on shipping?
Cost to verify overseas c'cards?
Cost of refused delivery?
Cost of RMAs?
Import duties?
English only packaging?
I live in India, so I can feel the OP's pain.
However, there are a number of problems due to which a company would be reluctant to ship to any random country:
1) Local laws: the laws in each country could be different. Its too much work to figure out whether you are satisfying all the local laws, before you can ship there.
2) Fraud: as someone else pointed out above, chances of credit card fraud are much higher.
Here in India, we don't really have anything akin to the US social security number (nothing that works, anyway). So lots of people just stop paying bills (credit card, cell-phone, personal loan) before they move to a different city. And there's not much that can be done about it.
If this is a problem a local company faces, imagine what would happen to a company that doesn't even have an office here.
3) Lost in the mail: Often, items shipped internationally get lost somewhere en-route and never reach the recipient. If it is not stolen or damaged along the way, it might get stuck in customs clearance. Sending it through a reliable channel like Fedex cost a godawful lot of money.
And often, customers are going to blame the company if the goods don't reach.
4) Lack of interest: with all the above problems, it is rare that there is an item that is not available locally and easily, but at the same time is popular enough to justify going through all the trouble.
navin.
Why does it mean that just because a site is on the web it must provide all its services to the entire world? The web is worldwide, not the services of each specific site.
That's like complaining that the front page of the New York Times on the web isn't world-centric (hint: it's not even US-centric, it focuses on New York)
Having been in a small mail order business for quite a while, I can tell you why US companies hate shipping internationally:
It's a pain in the ass.
An international package takes at least 3 times the paperwork to fulfill. There's a 4-part customs form, customs declarations, and not to mention ungodly postage. It also screws up shipping calculations. In the US, you can safely charge a flat rate fee for shipping and that's that. You can even run actual shipping rates through the current USPS And FedEx rate tables. Now, bump it up to international shipping. You HAVE To insure everything that goes international, since the package is handed off between organizations many times if you use the US Post Office. UPS and FedEx are ungodly expensive internationally and hardly pay to use. Not to mention that many international customers don't have English as their first language making correspondance that much more difficult.
Now what about your return policy? I sure as hell don't want to be sending a call tag for $100 to get a computer shipped back to me because they didn't like it and it's broken. It's just impossible to provide the same level of customer service to someone not in the same country as you.
So if you were wondering, that's why US Companies hate shipping abroad. Canada and Mexico are a little easier since they have more relaxed borders, but still a pain in the butt.
So... Do you know where Hungary is? Can you find it on a map? Without Google?
I had a general idea when I started reading the story, and when I thought of this comment I was able to place it exactly in my head, and could even tell you nearby countries...(no hints for you!)
Enjoy!
On Arrakis: early worm gets the bird. Magister mundi sum!
It used to be like that when the G4 came out, but the policy has long since been revised.
:-)
To get this back on topic: AFAIK, all of Apple's online stores (it has them for various countries) only sell to people living in the respective countries, and I'm afraid the feeling in Cupertino is that the Mac market share in Hungary is too small to warrant a localized online store with all the additional costs. (Call center, etc.)
And the ITMS is, as you probably know, all tangled up in complicated European licensing issues - there's no European equivalent for the RIAA and even within single countries, the labels can't seem to agree on a common policy.
Will Amazon.com sell you DVDs? They should - there isn't that much of a warranty issue with them and I can get them overe here in Germany without any problem.
(BTW, if you're in the market for US-DVDs and Amazon won't sell them to you, try play.com or dvdboxoffice.com )
As for the earlier post that mentioned Hungary's countryside: I sure hope it's beautiful; I'll be visting Budapest a month from now.
Believe it or not there actually are differences between the differnt countries in the world. Companies that don't sell to a foreign market usually do so because they have either found it to be more costly than profitable or they haven't found a reason to expand into that market. Comapnies are usually trying to make money and if it costs more to setup your company to do business in some foreign company then more than likely you aren't going to. Its not as simple as just telling UPS to ship to some country. There are lots of hurdles to doing business in a foreign country. Logistically, financially, and legally. And if anything the amount of small business transactions has improved tremendously. 10 years ago the average consumer wouldn't have bought a damn thing from some other country, even with mail order. The fact that we dont have universal commerce between all countries shouldn't surprise anyone.
I wish Slashdot would have an article on discussing 21st Century payment methods sometime...
.fi sites only when buying or selling anything online. Ah well, atleast it works. Money arrives instantly on the other person's account, or mine, and my bank's web interface is a hell of a lot better than paypal's monstrosity, which btw, must've taken hundreds of manhours to make so horrendous.
Is it just me, or is it somewhat laughable, that the best payment method when crossing national boundaries, still seems to be cash in an envelope?
Foolishly, I thought that paypal would be easy, and work internationally, oh how wrong I was. I eventually gave up, there seemed to be no way at all to transfer money into a paypal account. I ask the same as in the article, "the money is in my account, I want to transfer it, what's the problem?"... Sigh.
I'm limited to
Ok, so maybe I can understand that banking everywhere hasn't progressed into www yet, but come on, should transfers really take hours, let alone DAYS!? *grumble* Actually, I could live with days, if it just would work for more than one country.
I'm straying from my original intent... To ask the slashdot crowd, for ideas on a payment system of the future. Do the banks in your country use a system which you like/dislike? The banks might not listen or care, but brainstorming can never hurt.
I work for two small web only retailers and know the business practices and policies. International shipments are a pain in the ass. And this goes for receiving shipments (large bulk orders) into the US and shipping from the US to the end customers. For the Importing into the US, the main problem is documentation. You have to file so many damned forms it is ridicules. Right now, the shipper of our products forgot some form, and customs told us to get some form from the manufacturer, who is the only one who can create it, and give it to the customs office or they will DESTROY yes destroy $20k worth of products. Now that is our cost, retail is 5 times that. As for sending customers items.... FRAUD Everyone gets this one. Of all the fraud we run across, most of it is from outside the US CA and UK. Of course we get it from inside the US too, but most are outside. Credit Card Companies rules on fraud We have US customers who call their CC company after they get their items, tell them they didn't order the stuff, or say they sent it back, then the CC take their money back. We are out products, CC service fees, and shipping. We can fight this type of fraud inside the US, not outside. Cost of shipping It is damned expensive for packages over one pound. Time It takes minimally twice as long to ship an international package vs. a domestic. Some take longer depending on the items being shipped. Some require extra paperwork, some items can't be imported at all. With all that being said, we still take most international orders. But we usually do a manual verification of the credit card with the CC processor. Which takes time. But some we just refund outright and don't contact the customer. Like UPS Express Expedited (More or less next day) for a $5 item, and shipping is $200, and going to Indonesia. Not likely a good order. We have added some extra steps to get international orders out just to try and make people happy. But they are only a small percentage of our daily orders. Problems with international packages take much more time and money to get resolved than US orders.
Fear Is the Only God
Having lived overseas for many years, I can sympathize. However, that doesn't mean I stood for it. Get off your asses and make a difference rather waiting for someone else to do it.
But I think you've hit on something that is much deeper. Many times Americans will say "So what? Who cares about country X?" (See reply at same level) but as an American who has lived overseas most of my life, I have to say that it has helped a lot. It helps you understand where everyone else is coming from, especially in regards to their view of the US. It's similar to finding out who your neighbours are down the street. It may seem trivial, but it will help you understand your neighbourhood better and also understand what they think of you (and if you're a different race, what they think in general). Knowledge is always a good thing, and once we start to understand where people are coming from, we are better equipped to communicate and create solutions instead of blunders.
/soapbox
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
How many posts have I seen on /. bitching about how people can't get their hands on the latest games/PlayStation/laptop/gadget/whatever from Japan?
How many people in this article are defending business practices that prevent people outside the US from ordering from US companies?
Do I smell the scent of hypocrisy? Naaah...
Well, well. In senior high we actually had to learn about 200 countries (their locations that is) and had an exam on them. Sure, I can't remember all the countries anymore or name all the countries along the African coast, but I certainly can point to the right direction when I hear a name of a country anyway.
Not being mean or anything, but the average geographical knowledge of an american is pretty damn poor.
Yeah but that isn't relevant. His point went straight over your head.
Just because I am visible to you over a network doesn't mean I am obligated to do business with you. The nationality independence of the web means Turkish people can buy things off Turkish sites, Japanese people can do business on Japanese sites, etc. and it works well for everybody. It doesn't imply that everyone doing business on the Internet is responsible for servicing customers from anywhere in the rest of the world.
People might have a whole bunch of reasons for limiting service to locations closer to themselves. There could be all sorts of paperwork and infrastructure that might not be properly set up to handle the transaction, or the associated overhead may overwhelm the profits from an extended market.
I don't understand where people come up with some of these strange beliefs about the Internet that they seem to have. How is it in principle any different from the global telephone network? For some reason, nobody has any common sense regarding the web, but phones don't seem to confuse people.
If I have a pizzeria in New York City and I install a phone, and you call me from Los Angeles trying to order a pepperoni pizza, I'm going to hang up on you. Having a phone number that is accessible to you doesn't mean I owe you my business. Even though you can dial my number and easily get in touch with me, there might be other problems, like the difficulty in getting a physical object like a pizza to you. The ease of the phone call hardly enters into it. "Why aren't you calling pizzerias in Los Angeles?" I'd ask, before hanging up. And that would be a reasonable response. How is having a web site any different? It isn't.
Fraud is the answer.
Right, which is why my U.S born wife must get her orders from GAP sent to her mothers house in N.C and then have her mother forward them to us here in the U.K because gap.com won't ship outside the U.S.
Those other guys who ship straight from the U.S to the U.K must be getting suckered all the time! Oh wait, CC fraud is about the same in the U.K as it is in the U.S..
I visited Hungary just a few weeks ago, we wanted to rent a car to get there, but they wouldn't rent it to us because they cannot get the insurance for the car in Eastern European countries.
So we bought a car, the travel insurance to Hungarije was 15% or so higher then if we would have gone to Spain or some other western european country.
The economy is low so companies do everything to save money/not pay money. Terrorism is the mainstream accepted excuse. And since Hungary was under Socialist/Communist (which one was it agian?) reign till 1991 or so, places countries as such in the High Risk Countries category.
I hope things like these will resolve when Hungary joins the European Union. Not that I really want that, cause wealthy west-europeans will move to Hungary and destroy the beautifull countryside to build office buildings and such, and Hungarians will probably move to the west so you culture will be lost aswell... But thats a different discussion..
The rate of fraud might be about the same, but have you tried looking at the legal burden of arresting someone overseas in a foreign sovereign nation vs. arresting someone a few states away? We might have extradition treaties with the UK, but to invoke it for a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars worth of fraud, every time such a crime is committed, would completely overrun law enforcement offices, making it impossible for them to deal with more serious matters.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
My wife runs an internet children's book shop (I won't plug it here), and while there are no countries we have 'banned' there are several areas we flag as high risk: Eastern Europe, especially Rumania, and Southeast Asia, especially Singapore and Indonesia.
An order from there, especially multiple copies of items, books oriented toward teens such as comic book collections, etc., will raise a red flag, especially if a US credit card is used.
There's a issue with the credit card processors: They charge more for handling ex-US shipments, because of a higher risk, but if you put a foreign address in they make no attempt to verify the address. But what do they care? They don't accept any risk, except for the customer payment of the card. Everything else is risk to the merchant.
So our typical response is to request a photocopy of both sides of the credit card e-mailed or faxed to us. Often, the customer never replies in cases where we suspect fraud. We've only had one customer refuse to fax us the card (hey, we already had her number, what's the big deal), and she ordered it to her home in the US and shipped it overseas herself.
Design for Use, not Construction!
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 world wide web started in the US as a government program so it is difficult to make the claim that it is "becoming more and more centered on the USA".
These policies are an individual companies decision and they have the right to make such policies especially in the face of internet taxation.
I wish that the internet was as free as it once was however politics and greedy governments are working to destroy it all. It is only going to get worse.
My SO works for a large online transaction processor; they don't accept transactions from entire countries or regions, due to rampant fraud in those areas.
...
I assume that it is due to lack of enforcement of support from law enforcement in those areas
Considering he's an American expat, I expect he prolly wants his crap in English anyway. I suspect this is the deal - he wants AMERICAN stuff while living in Hungary. Sorry, tho, that's just not how things work sometimes. The poster acts like this is some big US conspiracy to 0wnz0r the WWW, but it's generally a logistics thing - the few sales companies would get from Hungary isn't worth dealing with Hungary.
Considering the US has anachronistic laws dealing with export control of encryption and such, as well as other problems, it isn't worth the trouble of having the main sales unit deal with each country. For big companies like IBM, they have a unit for each country that are (hopefully) experts in local issues. So really, the only people with problems here are US expats who want stuff in English instead of the local language. In other words, him.
My advice to the guy would be to have some family in the states to order it for him and ship it. But complaining isn't going to help, and making it into some US vs. the world thing is silly.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Take an overseas order for $11,000.00
Doing everything by the "Book" when processing the card.
Finding out 2 months later the card was stolen, when the card company removes the funds from your account.
Getting NO help, support, relief from the card company, now thats fucking priceless!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I currently work for a very large online retailer. As everyone has previously suggested, fraud is the answer. From our fraud department, nearly 33% of the orders that we received from over sea's, when we did oversea's shipping, were fraud orders. It's just not worth it.
Why do US companies mostly sell in the US? Don't blame us, blame the archaic EU and their maze of rules to protect:
-consumers
-nationalized industries
-subsidized companies
Imagine if you were to do business in the US and each state had 12 specific rules when it comes to completing a sale via the web...you'd basically go for California and maybe another populous state and write off the rest.
We thought about doing this awhile back, and here are just a few of the reasons why we bagged it:
French servers needed to be physically located in France, as did Italian ones.
There are at least 3 different sets of laws that constrain a company when it comes to returns: Imagine you sell something, and after a while, the user wants their money back...and you're obliged to give it to them or face the wrath of their country's laws.
Shipping can be a serious pain in the ass. Imagine getting your computer and Hungarian customs has swiped a few discs.
The VAT. Add 17% to the price of everything.
The rules are 'changing' (some of the above may no longer be true) so as soon as you're compliant with 12 countries, 3 others change the rules to make it 'easier' for businesses.
The fact is, Europe knows this is holding them back, but there are so many protective clauses that will get politicians slaughtered if they are rolled back. Your friendly neighborhood Hungarian PC maker would be quite upset if you could order from Dell.com.
Don't get me wrong, I love Europe, loved living there, and would prefer it to 99.9% of the places in the states, but for better or worse, our culture is set up to get business moving: one dot-com, 300 million potential customers. Europe: one dot-com per country, 2-20 million potential customers.
It's not going to happen until these countries release their grips on tariff mentality.
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.
Your telephone can call mine, too. That doesn't mean I have to do business with you. Get over it.