How Package Forwarding Mitigates the Risk of International Sales
December 23, 2011
Guest Post by Colleen Hazelrigs
In my earlier posts, here and here, I introduced the idea of opening your product to international sales and showed how simple it is to do that with a package forwarder. This might have piqued your interest but you may still have reservations about the risk of selling internationally. You may have concerns about the reliability of international payments. Or you may wonder about dealing with customer service for customers in countries that speak different languages. Using a package forwarder mitigates those risks.
Mitigating the Financial Risk
In order for a customer to obtain their US address from the package forwarder they go through a security screening. This confirms legitimate and available funds. If the package forwarder has any concerns about the legitimacy of the credit card offered in the formation of the account, they may require the customer to use PayPal or prepaid systems such as Entropay, which offer an additional level of fraud protection. Also, make sure your package forwarder has experienced staff that review the order from you and verify or return any suspicious transactions.
This screening system, though not a 100% guarantee of legitimate funds, significantly reduces the risk of international shipping fraud, and provides a layer of protection between you and your customer. You can ask your customers to use one of these payment vehicles, as well, giving you first hand assurance of reliable payments.
Dealing with International Customer Service
You may be concerned about a potential language barrier or the logistics of returns with international sales. Again, the package forwarder is your liaison to your customer. They have the resources to communicate with the customer in their own language and deal with return shipment logistics.
You Can Do It
As a small on-line merchant you can easily access new streams of revenue by expanding to international sales. By partnering with a package forwarder the risk and cost can be substantially shifted to an expert international shipper, allowing your product to serve people all over the globe and your business to thrive beyond your expectations.
Photo used under Creative Commons SA/ND license, from Seattle Municipal Archives on Flickr
This is a great article about package forwarding. One new package forwarder that you can try out is Goopping.com. They help small business's that want to expand their products internationally, but don't have the means or the money to accomplish the international shipments. Also they have really low rates and their site is really simple to use.
https://www.goopping.com
Posted by: Brody | March 28, 2012 at 03:34 PM