On 2005-04-25, Johny <gnavarro.DeleteThis@dodo.com.au> wrote:
> Why are some online merchants hesitant to ship to international addresses?
> What are some of the risks of doing so?
Depending on the country, the fraud rates can be very high. I don't know
what it is this year, but in the year 2001 98% of online credit card
sales to Romania were fraudulent. We have found fraud rates on sales to
Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and some other countries to be quite
low, though.
On top of that, it is often problematic to do real-time card charging to
non-US credit cards. Response time via the gateways can be very long,
and there are many mistakes. There is no AVS support, and phone calls
are expensive and problematic, so you have a hard time checking on fraud.
Shipping can also be a problem. The best method is probably US Postal
Service, and many businesses don't like to deal with them.
In general, I recommend using the US Postal Service, limiting the
countries you accept orders from, and refusing to ship to any address but
the billing address if you have a big-ticket item. Given those parameters,
selling overseas can be profitable.
--
Mike Heins
Perusion -- Expert Interchange Consulting <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.perusion.com/" target="_blank">http://www.perusion.com/</a>
Be patient. God isn't finished with me yet. -- unknown<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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