Advice re selling outside EU

[gedam]

At present I only ship my products within the EU, Initially I figured easier because I'm not registered for VAT and cheaper insurance. However recently I have been getting far more interest from USA and Australia.

I am in a bit of a quandary about this and any advice about whether I should expand will be appreciated. In particular any pitfalls or any countries that may cause a problem.

Just to add - my payment processor is Pay Pal and I am aware of issues. But at the moment a lot of my orders are not actually processed online, so this works fine for me atm.

Thanks any guidance will be gratefully received!

 

[storagewoman]

We have just struck up a strategic alliance with a fulfilment house in the states. We have just joined the BABC British American Business Council. If you would like any help pm me and i can help you.

 

[gedam]

I apologise I think my post was confusing and I didn't explain myself very well. :redface:
I am not a wholesaler but a retailer

 

[storagewoman]

We deal with start ups and home businesses right up to medium sized businesses. We help retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers. We deal with ebayers and ebidders. We store, pick pack and dispatch.
Lucy

 

[TotallySport]

Your insurance selling outside the EU goes up not down, if your selling to the USA your insurance will go up substancially, and if your not cover you could find yourself in a whole heap of poop.

Lets say you sell a product to someone in the US, they get an injury from it, and they sue you, in the UK they sue you for a 10's of thousands, in the US its for 10's of millions, and even if its a branded product they sue you first and you then recoop through the manufacturer, so you have to be insured, and it gets expensive.

 

[AndyP]

Absolutely. TotallySport is correct. The issue here primarily relates to insurance with the US and Canada being the main problem areas. To be honest, you could expand to worldwide excluding the US and Canada but generally most of your enquiries, I'm guessing, will be from the States. Without appropriate insurance it really is foolhardy to ship there. We used to, with our insurance company pefectly well aware of this and then about two years ago some insurance bod took a second look at our policy and panicked I think and our next renewal for exactly the same cover suddenly increased tenfold just because of the US cover. It was enough to make us reconsider the sense of it. Apart from that, hand on heart, its also fair to say that when you ship to the US about 99% of questions, queries, ordering mistakes and general difficulties etc etc etc will come from your US customer base.

 

[gedam]

Many thanks for the replies. Yes I was aware that my insurance would go up, I was just trying to weigh up if it was worth it but I can see your point about general difficulties.

 

[AndyP]

Hahahaaha...."general difficulties"....I hadn't realised I could be so tactful at 5.30 in the morning! LOL

 

[gedam]

lol I hadn't thought of that! Seriously I can see what you mean though. Thanks

 

[deniser]

We ship to the US. We couldn't initially because we couldn't get insurance but after complaining loudly and persistently we did get cover for the US for only £100 a year extra provided the US sales don't exceed 5% of total turnover.

You need to be aware of their extreme safety laws. We sell children's clothing and every item that is shipped to the US needs substantial safety testing. That includes not just the fabric but every piece of trim, button etc. They test for lead as well as the other more usual tests. You need to be included on your manfacturer's insurance policy as a retailer as well as be able to produce testing certificates. For toys it is even worse. Many US manufacturers and retailers have gone out of business because they can't comply with the legislation.

The same rules apply to Canada.

I haven't encountered problems with other parts of the world except that I only ship to countries where there is a reasonable postal system.

As for problem customers we don't find that on the whole except sometimes they don't realise that they are not dealing in US dollars so they have issues when they get their credit card bill or when you refund them they don't understand that you may have deducted the postage cost from the refund amount (DSR doesn't apply outside Europe) or sometimes they don't understand that they can't have their goods the next day.

Post to Australia is incredibly fast and we have never encountered any problems shipping to Australia except at Christmas when the post is really slow.

 

[AndyP]

.....cover for the US for only £100 a year extra .......

Can I ask who you have your insurance with because that is a seriously low extra premium! ....Ours ran into thousands extra, hence ultimately deciding not to continue shipping to that region

 

[deniser]

Can I ask who you have your insurance with because that is a seriously low extra premium! ....Ours ran into thousands extra, hence ultimately deciding not to continue shipping to that region

That is with AXA standard shops insurance. But they refused to cover the US many many times before we got an alternative quote from a local business broker and when we said we were leaving them they suddenly said it was no problem to add it. There is a limit though on the sum insured, I can't remember the exact amount but it is several million, probably not enough to meet a large US claim but if that happens I guess we would be wiped out anyway.

 

[AndyP]

That is with AXA standard shops insurance. But they refused to cover the US many many times before we got an alternative quote from a local business broker and when we said we were leaving them they suddenly said it was no problem to add it. There is a limit though on the sum insured, I can't remember the exact amount but it is several million, probably not enough to meet a large US claim but if that happens I guess we would be wiped out anyway.

Thanks for that...I will pass it on to the powers that decide these things!