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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."
I don't know if it is a problem in Hungary, but some countries get blacklisted due to credit card fraud.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Credit card companies are one of the major stop gaps to allowing truly online, global commerce from happening.
No major credit card company will validate a credit card from one country to the next. Hence, if I live in Canada, and want to purchase a product from a company in the UK, Visa (or Mastercard, Discover, American Express, etc) won't do a check on my credit card for the company in the UK to ensure that I'm the cardholder, that my address & postal code match, etc.
If credit card companies would allow cross-border validation to occur, online commerce would see an enormous increase in activity. Unfortunately, fraudulent purchases would be one of those increases, hence why the credit card companies won't budge. If there is a solution to the fraud issue (.NET? Liberty Alliance?), then convincing the credit card co's/banks/financial institutions to allow cross-border validation would be much easier...
In the last three years I've been deployed to the Balkans twice by the US Army. I go nowhere without my laptop. But good luck trying to get updated software or Accessories, As the original article mentioned Amazon will at least sell books and movies, but little else.
The last time I deployed I had just purchased a new laptop, and realized after I was enroute that Norton System Tools 2002 did not support the XP the system ran, so I tried to order Norton System Tools 2003. Nobody would ship it, and it the PX didn't stock it. I ended up ordering it to my home and having my family send it to me. The same issue came up when I decided I wanted an ergonomic keyboard. Unable to ship the Norton, I could kind of understand as there maybe some export restirctions for some reason, but a funky shaped keyboard? And I have to note that all this stuff was being sent to my APO address. All I should have had to do was find companies that used the US Postal Service as all APO's are treated as stateside mail addresses. No Luck and again the Post Exchange(PX) system's lousy tech selection didn't help me either. Supposedly anything I want the PX has it online, right. At least Amazon would send my books and most important my DVD's quickly. (Hint to anyone deployed or looking at getting deployed, when ordering to an APO select the cheapest shipping option, they automatically upgrade it to first class mail at no charge.)
Try to order something of an electronic or software nature to an overseas address. Most online retailers have their systems set up to serve only the US and maybe Canada. They aren't limiting to trouble countries like Hungary, they usually won't even give any shipping option or purchase option outside the US, not even to APO's which are legally considered stateside addresses.
Again as I said above, I can understand it if the merchants are forced to balk on some items with export restrictions such as encryption restrictions. However, instead they have made it a blanket blockage on items that don't fall into those categories.
Okay you say, but I've just mentioned difficulties with APO addresses using US mail, and what about other forms of shipping. So add the higher shipping charges as necessary. UPS, DHL FEDEX and other shippers do ship overseas. I will grant some difficulties due to customs tarrifs, but wonder how much a burden that really is considering how widespead the aformentioned delivery companies's operations are.
Determining the shipping charges may take some additional time, but thats easy to handle. Simply put into the transaction software a point where the purchaser may have to wait a brief time until the purchase and shipping charges can be confirmed and then emailed to the purchaser with a link back to the purchase to complete the transaction.
In conclusion I agree with the Original Article, in this day of international commerce and the World Wide Web why can't we get basic electronics software and computers and components shipped overseas?
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Quite simply, Apple has less marketing; they tend to go for the larger markets (such as Poland, Austria, and Norway), and leave alone the smaller countries in between (such as Lithuania and Hungary). If you want an Apple in Lithuania, you can (1) go to the one store in Vilnius, place an order, and wait two weeks, or (2) Go to Warsaw on a bus, get your computer same day, and return.
Clearly, the Vilnius operator just consolidates #2 for those who don't want to go to Warsaw.
Aside from that, there are still the issues of international law, taxes, tariffs, and dealing with criminality. Quite simply, if you send something valuable through Lithuanian post, it has an excellent chance of disappearing, computer equipment especially. Apparantly international studies point one finger (bribes) at the Customs department, but local people say no, it's the post workers themselves. I myself am kindof divided on the issue: I don't really know where the stuff disappears, just that it definitely does. I also know that I had tons of trouble even getting stuff through UPS, and UPS did not even inform me that it was held up! I had to start calling around, asking pointed questions before I finally found the item, convinced them that there was no legal way to apply a tariff, and they then sent it on. Note that they did not even send a note asking the intended recipient for the product. It seems they were just going to delay it until a time limit ran out, and take it. And UPS did not seem to have any ability to help, except to tell me where in their system the package had disappeared.
But that being the case, there's not a lot of point in paying a 500% insurance rate on shipping. Maybe it's the same in Hungary.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The reason is because you have a ton of countries all with unique shipping requirements and laws and blah blah...but the USA has good customers and it is all uniform. You can us the US Postal service, or UPS and you know it will be easy. For example if I have a customer doing a website and they inquire about shipping internationally, I have to tell them....well how much are you going to charge? They don't know because each country is different, whereas the USA is the USA and they know what to charge. I had a customer who did international shipping and got burned on a sale to New Zealand - her shipping to N.Z. made it not worth even selling. And yes there is a lot of fraud in Moldavia and places like that. It's too bad the crooks are ruining the repuation of their whole country.
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