M4 Partners - International Shipping

It will not be long after you open your brand new online retail company that you get the email.It will arrive either via your website’s Contact Us link or via E-Bay’s Messages box.It will seem like such a simple question at first, but it will lead to an investigation that can leave the most adventurous store owner scratching his head.Here’s an actual excerpt from the email that I received:

Grammar aside, our international friend poses a good question.Being a motivated seller, I jumped to his aid.After all, using a international dropshipper gives me the viewpoint that asks, “What do I care?It is just a different SHIP TO address to enter in my order entry screen.”If our customer lives in Thailand, Argentina, or the Czech Republic, and is willing to pay shipping costs, I am certainly willing to fulfill his order.I asked for his exact mailing address and told him that I would get a shipping quote to him as quickly as possible.I quickly shot a request to my supplier asking for a quote to ship the ($89.99 USD) product to Thailand.Here’s the quote that I received:

To quote the late, great Chris Farley, “Holy Snikeys!”.My $89 dollar sale, just went to around $450.00 USD!What could I do?I forwarded the shipping quote onto my potential customer.I imagine you can understand this reply.

As polite as that response was, I am sure he could have easily closed the email with “Whatever!You crazy American.”I, of course, responded with a kindly worded email explaining that I did not have any alternatives at the moment, but that left a bad taste in my mouth.I should have alternatives.My (almost) customer was right.There simply has to be another choice for me and my customer.

I read somewhere that if you are “one in a million”, in China, there are a thousand people just like you. I also read somewhere a prediction that the American economy will be the 5^th largest (not the 1^st, not the 3^rd, the 5^th largest) economy in the world by the year 2020[1]. What’s that mean? It means that there is a considerable customer base – your customer base – that lives outside of the United States.Further, those customer do not have the shipping and retail infrastructures that exists in the US.So, in order for them to get the goods and services that they require, they often turn to Internet purchasing[2].

EBay and eCommerce websites are the starting pointr international customers who want to purchase products that are readily available in the US, but scarce or rare or simply unavailable locally to them.

But, wow.How do you avoid those international shipping costs?

Let me introduce you to a concept that is readily available via the Internet, as well.It’s called:

Mail Package Forwarding

It is actually very straightforward, in demand, and thusly, has become a new industry with any number of service providers filling the niche.Mail Package Forwarding is a new service that allows an international customer to establish a US-based postal address.When an international customer purchases goods througha US-based retailer, he has the packages shipped to this US-based address.Then, the international customer bulks these packages into a single shipment to his real home address, and gains from bulk shipping and the service providers negotiated rates with international shipping companies.

Here’s an illustration:

Advantages

The first advantage is that the international customer never again has to ask the question “Do you ship internationally?How much will it cost?”The international customer can now buy any product from any US retailer and have it shipped to his US shipping address.Normal shipping rates will apply from the retailer to the shipping address, but these will be much less than international rates.This is a huge advantage to the international buyer.It opens up potentially closed sources, and sets seller’s minds at ease about the hassles of tracking international shipments.

Also, many of these services let you review your received shipments and handle bundling them up yourself.A customer who receives mail or low priority packages can hold them longer or even discard pieces that are of no value (e.g. junk mail).Some vendors allow you to have the letter opened, scanned, and emailed for a fee rather than shipping it.

There are some costs

Obviously, the service is not free.A customer can expect to pay an account setup fee to start.As international shipments are made, the customer is charge by the pound.The prices vary depending on international destinations.Customers often have a choice of lowering this per pound fee by paying a recurring monthly fee.

A typical rate program might look like this:

While this is an example, it is important to note that there are abundant options available for various situation.You can pay higher monthly fees to offset shipment costs or vice versa.The customers often can share accounts between a number of people offsetting the costs further.There are plenty of solutions available.One will fit almost any requirement.

Advantages

As you can imagine, this greatly benefits your online business, too.That $450 product that I could not sell in the introduction just became much more reasonable.If you can offer this solution, you will likely increase the potential of selling your products to international customers.

And as was written above, this eliminates much of the reluctance to ship products internationally.As a shipper your responsibility is to get the product from your store to the US Shipping address. Once that is complete, the remainder of the journey is the responsibility of your customer and their Mail Package Forwarding service provider.

But, wait! There’s more!

Here’s the most interesting angle, and if you have not heard of this one then you might want to start looking around on the internet a bit more to understand the economic drivers that are in action there.

One of the most prevalent economic drivers on the Internet today is a concept commonly called an “Affiliate Program”.An affiliate program is a fancy name for paying folks for references to your site.Here’s how it works.

1. As a retailer, you choose one or more Mail Package Forwarding services that you would like to recommend to your customers.You contact these services, and ask to be accepted into their affiliate program.
2. They accept your application and forward you instructions (usually including an account number) and example banners or email links that you should include on your site to advertise their service.These links send your customer to their sites (as all links do), but also carry your account number so the service provider understands that the customer came as your reference.
3. The customer, impressed with your level of service and commitment to their satisfaction, signs up and pays the service provider for a cool, new US Postal address.He can now purchase your products and have you ship them domestically to this new address.Hassle Free.
4. (Hang onto your hats, here is the cool part.) The service provider pays YOU(!) for referring a new customer. A typical referral bonus is $10 to $15 dollars[3].

So, not only have you solved your international customers challenges with the cost of shipping your products, and lowered the barrier to your own sales;BUT!You’ve also made a small bonus for doing little else but putting a link to the service providers site into your response to the email:

Thanks very much for checking out our free white paper. If you found the information above helpful, let us know at sales@m4partnerslimited.com. Or better yet, check out our E-book below.

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