US merchants not shipping internationally?

[Pabby]

I did a search on the price checker thing on the main page. I was shocked at how low the prices on the US online retailers are compared to anywhere in the UK. i was all set to buy a radeon 9600 pro for $161 (£96, the same card costs at least £136($226) in any UK online retailer) when i saw they do not ship internationally. i checked all the other results and found that only one would ship to me for an additional $70. Now I'm no business man but I think its quite obvious that all these retailers are shooting themselves in the foot buy not shipping to the UK or elsewhere for that matter. They would make a vast amount of money from the customers flocking to save money. Now maybe theres a real good reason why none of them ship abroad, so I'd like to hear the thoughts of others on this subject and maybe someone could explain the reasons behind this.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I think its because of taxes and shipping charges to the countries that are holding them back. Also, when you ship worldwide, then if there is a problem and you need an excahnge/refund/RMA then it'll take even longer plus higher shipping costs and in the end it ends up being more expensive than if you had just bought it there not to mention a pain on their side.

 

[x3m]

If you find any friends of yours that want to order as well the US stores may want to ship.

My friends on a swedish HW forum have done this from example DangerDen a lot of times, and my heatsink is from the US! $15 in USA and $70 in Sweden.. $30 shipped and ready trough a friend who ordered ~10 AX-7s and SLK900s.

 

[Mark R]

Don't forget that you will have to pay VAT on anything you buy from overseas (outside the EU). Most couriers will also charge a fee for collecting the VAT - this fee may be up to £15. You pay this to the courier directly when they deliver your package. This is in addition to (not included in) the cost that the sender pays.

So where you have your $161 card - it may cost $30 to ship - total $191 (£112). Now, add VAT (£19), and handling fee (£15) - and you would have been far better off buying locally.

 

[neilm]

I was in the same boat as you over a year ago and tried alot of US resellers to ship internationally, in the end I thought it wasn't worth it, because a) the shipping was very expensive, it was almost the same price as here in the UK and didn't think it was worth the extra few quid for all that hassle b) product might get knocked about alot due to extensive travel c) support and RMA would be almost very difficult if anything went wrong.
But I agree, prices here are pretty bad compared to the US, I would say in some part of europe too as well.. not labelled rip-off britain for nothing (even though I'm from n.ireland).

 

[bacillus]

there are alot of shady characters out there & not shipping outside the US minimises fraud for the retailer!

 

[vegetation]

There's several reasons:

A) International shipping that is fully trackable and insured is very expensive. A one pound package can easily be over $25, for example. Businesses must use trackable mail, not the cheap-a** usps non-trackable mail that you use to send your aunt that fruitcake every year. The high cost deters international buyers and creates a lot of ignorant "your shipping is too high" type of complaints.

B) Higher chance of package loss. Packages have a much higher probability of being lost or damaged during international transit, simply because the package changes hands so often. Insurance may cover these losses, but the insurance process is long and often difficult to retrieve for international packages, as so much red tape must be gone through.

C) Unpaid custom duties. Higher priced goods are subject to custom duties, for which the customer is fully responsible in paying. Non-payment of these duties can result in the package being returned to the company. Company must refund full cost to the buyer, including shipping, even though the (high) shipping costs have been eaten. In some cases, the package could even be seized by customs.

D) Credit card companies do not have the ability to match the billing address to the shipping address for international cardholders. In the US, most businesses will not ship to an address other than the billing, and they can instantly do a match to see if it's valid or not. Very large companies may have the resources to do extra verification steps but smaller companies cannot absorb the cost of doing this.

E) Legal reasons -- if fraud is attempted in the US, they can use the full legal resources of law enforcement agencies to track down and prosecute the offender. Not possible over the border.

Now as you can see, there is just so many issues for a merchant to go through. They need to do an analysis of whether it's cost effective to do international trading or not. For a company that sells spare lawnmower parts, for example, there is very little chance of credit card fraud going on. But the electronics industry is big dollar signs for fraudulent activities.

 

[GaryShandling]

I love V.A.T, when youv'e ordered a £1000 item, go to checkout..click order and realise £300 of your hard earned money goes to the governement for building nuclear weapons. Only small items should be shipped internationally. An example of shipping problems i encountered: I ordered 2X DVD-VHS player from america, total came to $602+$40 shipping. When they arrived here (london,england) a shipping tax + customs charge were added to the bill + weight of package wasnt totalled in the bill and when i signed for it, it came to $980. Just dont order anything heavy.