Questions about international shipping

[surplusbydesign]

Hey,

I have a couple questions about international shipping.

Currently all the business we do is in Canada only.

We are looking to expand our business and start selling internationally, at first we will only be selling small items to test it out such as ipods and we picked Australia as our first destination.

Does anyone have any suggestions about shipping to Australia or any problems I may encounter when shipping their. Do they have certain policies or rules when shipping electronic items? Also what kind of return policy should I have when it comes to shipping to Australia?

Any suggestions will be much appreciated.

Regards,
-SBD

[ecbluestar]

Hi, for one you are not going to get signature conformation, just like to US, except expensive Priority Courier. Otherwise shipment arrive fast.

[coxengines]

AU$ is low and I often hear how they struggle with US$ pricing.

Shipping is straightforward (no delivery confirmation). It either gets there within a couple of weeks or it takes over a month. It's really a crap-shoot. However, delivery rate for us has been 100% so far and mostly within 2 weeks.

Mentality is somewhere between Canadian and American and the people fairly easy to get along with.

Personal import limits are AU$ 100 without paperwork, AU$ 1,000 with paperwork.

Of course the question does come to mind why you would not first target the USA? You might find AU to be quite a limited market compared to the US.

Good luck!
Bernie

[ds2286]

Surprisingly I have found Australia to be one of my better international customers (not including usa).

I have shipped all my items small packet, even expensive items $200-$300usd (not that I am recommending that to anyone else),there is a risk in doing that.

I have found small packet surface to be extremely slow to Australia (2-4 months) and small packet air to be fairly quick. I only use small packet air now.

Of course as xenalook said, why not USA?

[surplusbydesign]

We did consider US and we will continue to, we were looking for places that have high demand for our products. We are trying to see what other countries do not have our stuff locally maybe South America?

Australia was just a random choice, and would give us a chance to sell our products internationally and see how that goes.

[fatdane]

Australia can be a good market, depending on the state of their dollar. Do not, however, send anything to Australia by any form of surface transport - it takes forever and even Australian customers who say surface is ok because of the lower cost start emailing asking "where's my shipment"

[fatdane]

Australia can be a good market, depending on the state of their dollar. Do not, however, send anything to Australia by any form of surface transport - it takes forever and even Australian customers who say surface is ok because of the lower cost start emailing asking "where's my shipment"