muse idea, is international shipping such a problem?

[Adopted]

Hi all

Reading the book I was interested in the point made that international shipping is such a problem it's not recommended. Have any of you found that to be true? Have you created products or are marketing something and not selling to say, Canada if your in the US or to the US if your in Canada?

If so what is the real drawback in your mind, or what bad experience did you have with it? I have a muse idea that basically would redistribute through this but not sure it's really needed, and it would be hard to 'test' that.

April

[TimW]

I ship internationally as part of my business. While it's not the hassle it once was, it does take, on average, about 50-75% more of my time to process an international order, and an additional trip to the post office when the majority of my shipments go via UPS.

Until about 2 years ago, all international shipments required documentation that had to be filled out by hand. This made it even more tedious. Since all my international shipments go via US Postal Global Express Mail (GEMS), I can do 99% of my international shipment labels and documentation online.

Though the option for International Priority and International Parcel Post remains, I will not ship that method since the cost for tracking and insurance on the package brings the postage amount to nearly equal that of Global Express Mail. Add to this that priority is not available to some areas of various countries, I just avoid this issue altogether by shipping only GEMS.

Another thing is that an exporter, which is what you'd be, needs to understand any tarriff restrictions for the target country. You also need to determine postage amounts, which can vary, especially when shipping to third-world countries.

For example, I had a member of an non-US embassy security detail in Afghanistan contact me for a piece of equipment that retails for about $90. Because this was a non-US embassy, there was no APO/FPO box (i.e. military mail) to ship to, which make shipping to US government personnel easy. While this same package might cost $35.00 to ship to his home-country in Europe, the USPS calculated this shipment cost to be $63.00+...seventy percent of the item's value.

This was because the US Postal Service didn't have a formal agreement with that nation's postal service...namely because I don't believe Afghanistan has one anymore. Thus, the shipment had to go via Federal Express. I charge flat-rate pricing for all my shipments, but this one would have lost me money on the entire deal, necessitating that I charge the full shipping amount if he didn't have a home-country equivalent of miltiary mail.

Therefore, I believe Ferriss' admonishment not to ship internationally is a very pragmatic one if you are looking to automate a business (or "muse", even though I despise that term), and use a fulfillment house to store, pick, pack and ship your item(s), as the international portion just becomes yet another item that you have to deal with. Not to mention that returns are a real pain in the butt.

TimW
Phoenix

[lovinglife]

Potential problems depend on how you ship. Tim gave you some good info from his expierience.

I'm in the US and ship internationally with 99% of it going either USPS first class or priority mail which are far cheaper than Global or using a courier like UPS or FedEx but doesn't offer tracking. If someone wants one of the more expensive services, I look it up by weight and destination and charge accordingly. I only get about a half dozen requests a year so not that big of a deal. The paperwork is minimal but it does need to be done properly. A good fulfillment house should be able to properly process international orders if you want to automate.

You basically have to decide if international customers would be willing to pay enough to cover your shipping costs. If you are in the US, rates are going up on May 12 and my post office told me that they are switching up international services yet again. Also UPS, Fed Ex etc. rates are going up as gas prices go up.

[Adopted]

Thanks for those replies. I guess I'll explain it a bit better. I'd be importing the stuff, not exporting. I'm in Canada and there are products in the US that I believe are more wanted here than they are ordered. For the businesses in the states (who may hate international shipping, or charge extra for it) and the customer in Canada (who may not trust international shipping either) to get a better link up. It might be best thought of as a Canadian distributer of the product(s).

I have had great luck with ordering stuff from the states, but I always request USPS so that there is not huge added cost. UPS will charge minimum $60 to get something over the boarder, and more if it's an expensive item, they collect this from your customer on arrival. That has turned lots of people off who never looked into the shipping first. UPS calls this a brokerage fee and says it for getting it thorough Canadian Customs but they don't charge anything. The Postal service never charges brokerage just so you know. Anyway there are a few products that I know of where the manufacturer is unwilling to deal with postal mail so they just don't come here.

I guess I'm wondering how receptive businesses are to having others be a distributer for them over having to do international shipping, or alternatively not having international customers.

[lovinglife]

I can't really give you an answer on that since shipping to Canada has never been an issue and I ship there often.

If you have a specific list of products and know that they are not being offered to other countries, then you could contact them and see what they say. Personally, filling out a customs label and adding the package to my usual trip to the post office is a small price to pay vs. paying someone else to do it for me in another country for just that country. But then, I do ship around the workd on a regular basis (have orders going to Brazil, West Africa, in addition to here in the US today), and I primarily use USPS (I can ship DHL ground to Canada for less than $20 last time I checked but it has been about a year).

Not saying that it isn't possible. You would need to factor in costs of getting the products to you (they may require you to pay for the product up front at whole sale prices), costs of storing, costs of packaging materials, costs of shipping to customers, etc,