Why do so many US sites not ship goods overseas?

ooh oooh, i know!

cost prohibitive

inadequate volume

risk of fraud

potentially limited legal protection

special forms and declarations

embargo's

quotas

ignorance

...to name a few

about the most exotic places I ship are puerto rico, costa rica, VI, or bahamas... but USPS has deals that are cheaper than the other shippers for those locations.

For me in general anything over seas cost more to ship than the merchandise, unless it's a big multi-item order. I could jack up shipping, but then I have to redo the whole system to make sure no country is left out, or else you easily get stuck with a fat shipping bill from somewhere you didn't increase the price to ship to (been there done that). Not to mention the few folks that are even willing to buy at that price might be so few that you spend more in man hours setting up.

Basically you need to have a really in demand product, so that the volume allows for shipping discounts and enough profit to justify the lower margins and or higher rate to ship.

Or else, target a specific country and employ marketing there to get the volume needed.

That company you mention benefits by crossing markets to get the sufficient volume.

I spent a few years working inbound telemarketing for a big catalog company. When I worked the night shift, I spoke to a lot of Aussies and Kiwis.

As others have mentioned, fraud is a big concern.

Another is taxes, import fees, customs fees, tariffs and other assorted fees. Add in currency conversion...

I once took an order from New Zealand for a $240 pair of hunting boots. After all the assorted fees and taxes added in, the credit card charge came to almost $500 US. I don't recall the conversion at the time, but I remember it wasn't pretty...

Many smaller companies just don't want to deal with it all.

yes...

It's quite a bit easier to get your home country authorities involved than that of another country's.

Which is why there are more instances of foreign individuals using fake CC's and whatnot.

Harder to find and prosecute.

Take it froms someone who at the height of their online business experienced over 1 million in fraudulent orders in about 8 years, fraud comes primarily from an international audience.

In regards to it not being any more risk, I beg to differ.

Visa/Mastercard basically tell you to call the international bank issuing the ccard to verify the address provided with an order. I cannot tell you how many international calls, how long those calls were and how many were a total waste of time because even when you provide them with your merchant account number they ultimately come back and tell you Oh sorry sir, due to privacy reasons we are unable to verify that information for you.

Unbelievably English speaking countries were the worst - Australia and the UK almost 100% of the verifications were rejected, yet, I could get banks in India, Pakistan and even China to provide verification?

Let's talk about customs. After 9/11 the US Postal system implemented quite a lenghly form to fill out whereas before it was a short form sticker that got attached to the package. Oh, and don't believe for a second that the customer will be willing to 'sort it out' unless you tell them ahead of time about how much it is going to be in their country (yet another pain in the a** to find out) the "customer" will often get pissed when they have to pay the extra money.

Oh, it gets better. You might be able to provide a "rough" estimate of shipping times but once the package reaches the customs of the receiving country it could be up to 2 weeks or more in some cases before their customs bureau gets around to releasing it. Yes, NZ customs might be faster but our good neighbors to the North (Canada) have one of the WORST and SLOWEST customs depts. around, sometimes having a package up to 2 weeks.
Hell, China's customs was usually 1 to 3 days?

So add all this together and you have a bunch of pissed off customers not getting their order as fast as they want to (and this is on top of the fraud) and they end up filing chargebacks because they dont receive something when they think it shoud arrive. No one else saddles the blame but you, the vendor.

Sorry if this is a bit long but when I read your post I had to give you my over decade worth of experience and rant (not against you but the overall reasons for why most USA businesses choose not to do business internationally).

I owned mail order company few years ago, I sold products worldwide but there were many times customs would hold products weeks at a time, and in some cases customers never received, which cost me more money to reship, and paypal complaints will drive you out of business.

There are two main reasons I buy stuff from the US.

1. Products are much cheaper even taking into account the additional shipping costs and exchange rate (which isn't so much of an issue now that the US dollar is quite weak)

2. Some 2nd hand goods are virtually impossible to find locally. I've been recently trying to track down an item which is no longer manufactured and the only place I can find it is on eBay in UK and US.


BTW, thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. It has given me a much better understanding of the situation in the US.

I've always had terrible luck shipping overseas, you also can't go after a person overseas in court. So you end up taking some risk but it can make you mad money.

But we are not talking about bulky products. In most cases, it's clothes, cosmetics, or small electronic appliances. My main question is why don't online stores like Amazon ship to countries like Russia or Israel?

I have been selling on ebay for many years and have always shipped worldwide.

However, it has been my experience that many, many sellers refuse to ship overseas.

Many sellers on ebay make a point of stating in their listings - USA Only!

My opinion is that they are just ignorant and/or lazy and don't want to do the extra work involved, such as figuring out what to charge for shipping, filling out customs forms, etc.

They are losing lots of business, but that's ok with me because I always get lots of buyers in other countries.

Did you know that a good many US companies will not ship to Hawaii or Alaska?

The reason is that they are set up only to use UPS and UPS shipping charges to Hawaii and Alaska are often prohibitive. If you use Priority Mail, USPS can cost exactly the same to ship to Hawaii and Alaska as to the 48 mainland states. However, they refuse to make any exceptions to their shipping procedures and a customer who lives in Hawaii or Alaska is just out of luck.

Marcia Yudkin
(Part-time Hawaii resident)