International E-Commerce: Going Global Just Got Easier By Jennifer Schiff
July 29, 2008
With more people in more countries going online and shopping, and the weak U.S. dollar making U.S. goods even more attractive to overseas buyers, now would seem to be a great time for U.S.-based e-commerce businesses to go global. That is until you consider the hassles and risks — like navigating international customs and tariffs; credit card fraud, which occurs nearly three times as often on orders originating from outside the U.S. and Canada; and the added costs of providing international customer service.
But what if you could enjoy all of the benefits of international e-commerce (i.e., selling more goods to more people) without all of the drawbacks, for just 10 percent of each sale and no upfront costs? Then you would be like EyeSave.com, AmazingSocks.com, and dozens of other small and mid-sized businesses that have signed up with iShopUSA, a two-year-old international e-commerce solution.
Outsourcing Your International E-Commerce
AmazingSocks.com's experience with international sales probably will sound familiar to a lot of e-commerce business owners. Shortly after launching AmazingSocks.com about 10 years ago, Executive Vice President Vincent Tabano recalls the company was getting a lot of queries regarding shipping products (socks and apparel) overseas. So they figured they'd give it a try.
After looking at different ways to sell and ship items to customers outside the United States, however, Tabano and his team decided to set up a separate international site — and launched AmazingSockInt.com. But as he quickly found out, "it's a lot of work to keep two sites going all the time.
"We had to charge the customer. Then we had to make sure the credit card worked properly - and hope that they didn't pay with a fraudulent credit card," explained Tabano. "And then we would have to pack items up, ship them out, and hope they got to the person. And sometimes the customer would have to pay customs, things like that, and things would get sent back to us. It was a whole mess."
Then, while looking for a better way to handle international sales on his sporting goods site, MoabSports.com, Tabano came across iShopUSA and decided to try it out. He's glad he did. "It worked fantastic," said Tabano. "The integration was easy — took about 15, 20 minutes. And there's nothing that we have to take care of now."
Now, he said, he just sells directly to iShopUSA — shipping product to iShopUSA's California fulfillment center (as opposed to overseas), where iShopUSA takes care of the rest.
"They charge the customer. They send the package to the customer. They track the package. They do everything," explained Tabano.
In fact, Tabano was so impressed with iShopUSA that he recently combined the two AmazingSocks.com sites (into AmazingSocks.com) and is now using iShopUSA exclusively to handle overseas sales and shipping.
Outsourcing Risk
William Klebenov, the director of business development for discount designer eyewear site EyeSave.com, is another iShopUSA fan.
"iShopUSA handles all the credit card issues that make international sales so incredibly difficult for a small company such as ours. They take on the responsibility for screening for credit card fraud, which is the 600-pound gorilla in the room of international credit card-based sales. They also deal with [international] customer service. So if an international customer has an issue, iShopUSA will take care of it, which is great."
Klebenov, who said EyeSave.com has been using iShopUSA for nearly two years (pretty much since iShopUSA became available), and Tabano, who's been using it for about a year, also liked that there are no upfront costs with iShopUSA. iShopUSA simply takes a 10 percent transaction fee of every sale, which it gets by entering a special coupon code when purchasing products on behalf of international customers.
"The only thing customers have to take care of is integrating iShopUSA with their store," which can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on your site, said Nick Tobey, the president of iShopUSA, Once that is done, all international purchases get redirected to iShopUSA.
"We handle all the customer service aspects, screen out the fraud, take care of shipping, and guarantee payment with a U.S.-based credit card. So merchants never have to run the risk of a chargeback or an abandoned shipment," he explained.
(Continue to Page 2 for more Details on Selling Overseas with iShopUSA)
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