Starting to dispatch abroad: things to consider?

[bottlemaster]

Currently I only dispatch my bottles to the UK, but I am beginning to realise that I am missing out on a potential world-wide market.

However, I don't want to rush into it before carefully considering the ins and outs. So...what are some of the key things to consider when deciding whether to start dispatching goods abroad?

For starters I'm thinking of splitting postal charges up into the following categories:

• UK
• Europe
• USA
• Rest of World

I'd be keen to hear your experiences and any recommendations you may have.

Thanks,

Phil

 

[deniser]

Currently I only dispatch my bottles to the UK, but I am beginning to realise that I am missing out on a potential world-wide market.

However, I don't want to rush into it before carefully considering the ins and outs. So...what are some of the key things to consider when deciding whether to start dispatching goods abroad?

For starters I'm thinking of splitting postal charges up into the following categories:

• UK
• Europe
• USA
• Rest of World

I'd be keen to hear your experiences and any recommendations you may have.

Thanks,

Phil

You don't need to put USA in a different category to rest of world.

You do need to decide which countries to ship to. Your merchant account provider will have a list of countries that you shouldn't ship to.

We have our own list which we have compiled based on trial and error and experience. The list that you decide on is very dependent on the product you sell and whom you attract. For example, you will read that you shouldn't ship to Romania because of internet fraud. We have not had any problems from Romania at all. On the other hand we have stopped shipping to Italy because the levels of fraud were astronomical. We also view orders from Holland with suspicion.

Don't ship to countries without a proper reliable postal service.

To ship to USA and Canada (by law) you need product liability insurance and most insurance policies exclude this. This could well prevent you from even considering these countries.

If I were you I would start slowly with countries in the west of the EU and as you get more confident, add them one by one. People who want to order from other countries will email you if their country is not listed and you can consider them then.

Good luck.

We also only use the international signed for service - as soon as we sent things by ordinary post they started to disappear in large numbers. So factor the extra £3.50 for the signature into your postage costs.

 

[bottlemaster]

To ship to USA and Canada (by law) you need product liability insurance and most insurance policies exclude this.

Is this the case even if I am a sole trader working from home? My products are not electrical or mechanical, and nothing can go 'faulty' with them as such.

Phil

 

[paretowasright]

You don't need to put USA in a different category to rest of world.

You do need to decide which countries to ship to. Your merchant account provider will have a list of countries that you shouldn't ship to.

We have our own list which we have compiled based on trial and error and experience. The list that you decide on is very dependent on the product you sell and whom you attract. For example, you will read that you shouldn't ship to Romania because of internet fraud. We have not had any problems from Romania at all. On the other hand we have stopped shipping to Italy because the levels of fraud were astronomical. We also view orders from Holland with suspicion.

Don't ship to countries without a proper reliable postal service.

To ship to USA and Canada (by law) you need product liability insurance and most insurance policies exclude this. This could well prevent you from even considering these countries.

If I were you I would start slowly with countries in the west of the EU and as you get more confident, add them one by one. People who want to order from other countries will email you if their country is not listed and you can consider them then.

Good luck.

We also only use the international signed for service - as soon as we sent things by ordinary post they started to disappear in large numbers. So factor the extra £3.50 for the signature into your postage costs.

Hi just to add to Denisers points we have found Italy to be problematic as the post service there is very slow and Greece not much better. Had 1 item go missing in Spain and 1 in Malta but that was from a total of about 300 EU shipments this year. The recorded fee is now £4.20 + the postage so we only send stuff above about £15 by that method.

 

[deniser]

Is this the case even if I am a sole trader working from home? My products are not electrical or mechanical, and nothing can go 'faulty' with them as such.

Phil

Yes if you are sending them to the US in the course of your business.

 

[deniser]

Hi just to add to Denisers points we have found Italy to be problematic as the post service there is very slow and Greece not much better. Had 1 item go missing in Spain and 1 in Malta but that was from a total of about 300 EU shipments this year. The recorded fee is now £4.20 + the postage so we only send stuff above about £15 by that method.

Has it gone up to £4.20? That's huge increase! I must adjust my pricing.

We find the post to Malta to be very fast - 3 working days is the norm. Italy is variable as you say and can take up to 4 weeks. We send a lot to Greece and Cyprus and that seems fine although can take more than a week.

 

[Shopping365Group]

As others have said it's mainly down to trial and error really but there are definately some countries to scratch off the list straight away like Nigeria etc. Again as others have said we have been surprised by some countries being highly fraudulent that you wouldn't expect compared to others. Plus all our orders to France seem to go missing for some reason.

You could start with expanding to the US and some countries in Europe to begin with or take the plunge and offer to delivery to most of the world and then reduce your list as and when any fraudulent orders do occur.

 

[AndyP]

.....You could start with expanding to the US and some countries in Europe to begin with or take the plunge and offer to delivery to most of the world and then reduce your list as and when any fraudulent orders do occur.

That seems like a slightly backward way of moving forward. Surely it has to be better to risk assess first rather than go for the whole nine yards and then backtrack based on experienced fraud levels.

As others, and Deniser in particular, have said, be aware of your insurance requirement if shipping to the US. You would be mad to ship here without full insurance cover. The US is a highly litigious society. Plus 90% (based on our own experience) of added customer service (before/during/after sales) interaction will come from your US customer base.

 

[paretowasright]

Has it gone up to £4.20? That's huge increase! I must adjust my pricing.

We find the post to Malta to be very fast - 3 working days is the norm. Italy is variable as you say and can take up to 4 weeks. We send a lot to Greece and Cyprus and that seems fine although can take more than a week.

Deniser...yes went up from £3.50 to £4.20 in April and Airsure to £4.95.
RM are working on an additional new International service for PPI customers TBC not sure what it is though. I would suspect it will be a tracked service sitting between normal Airmail and recorded/airsure but we shall see.
Interesting on your Malta experience as we have had problems and know others that have too. Italy remains the biggest problem.

 

[deniser]

Italy remains the biggest problem.

With slow post or fraud?

I have over £600 of chargebacks from Italy this year alone (German cards - we didn't notice or would have been more suspicious and because they started slowly they got the OK from 3rd Man) and every 2nd order is an obvious fraudulent one which we stop. So we have recently stopped shipping to Italy at all.

 

[cosmetics4less]

About 20% of our orders go abroad, we send worldwide, and we have had very few problems.

Always send by a tracked method, we use Royal Mail International Signed For and I can't remember the last time we had a lost parcel.

Always send to the address the customer's card is registered to, this cuts out a lot of fraud.

 

[Snowgoat]

We use Royal Mail's airmail services, but our priority isn't tracking, or signatures or transit time but insurance. Some countries have a reduced max. cover for items, and you'll find that if you insure for more than the value any claim will be invalid.

Insure for cost price and when you have a loss, you'll have to wait 3 months or so for the claim to be processed. Our dilemma has always been: if your customer claims non-receipt, how long do you wait before sending them a replacement?