Basics of Selling to Foreign Countries?

Hi,

I wonder if all of you experienced zencart store owners could give a basic walk through of what is needed to sell to other countries.

I'm using Paypal and I set up a store, taking the country list default. I found that a few foreign visitors created customer accounts but then bailed before placing the order.

So, assuming that I'm willing to ship to any country that someone is willing to pay for and that I can find a carrier for, what is a basic walk-through of how to set this up?

As I started looking into this, some questions have come up:

1. What countries should I sell to if I'm using Paypal only? I looked at their help page for what countries they serve (http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-approved-signup-countries-outside), but found the wording a little hard to follow. For example, it says "send and receive payments in these countries." Is that the same as "from these countries?" Should I sell to all the countries they list?

2. For the countries they don't list, is the best technique to delete the country name in the zone shipping module?

3. For a US store, what's the best shipping methods to have? I see that if I choose USPS with the options of both priority mail and priority international mail, it correctly picks based on the country. Problem is, it only allows me to have one handling fee, so I can't charge extra for intl even though I have to stand in line at the post office.

4. Are there any countries I should stay clear of?

5. I noticed that no matter what country I pick, the zip code and state fields are required but not all countries have these things. Is there a way to make it required just for the states that have it? Is there a way for it to require the correct number of post code digits based on the country? Could the state be a dropdown for the countries that have states listed, like US and Canada, but be freeform for the rest? How do you all account for these differences in country addresses?

Any advice you could give for someone just setting up their store would be helpful.

Thanks.

Well I've answered some of my questions above.

1. If you're using Paypal, all the countries listed on http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...ntries-outside can be used. I confirmed this by putting in a test order and seeing what Paypal countries I could choose from.

So to make the ZenCart list match the Paypal list, these are the countries I deleted:
aaland islands
afghanistan
american somoa
Bangladesh
belarus
Bouvet Island
British Indian Ocean Territory
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
congo
Cote D'Ivoire
cuba
east timor
egypt
France, Metropolitan
French Southern Territories
Georgia
Equatorial Guinea
ghana
guam
haiti
Heard and Mc Donald Islands
iran
iraq
Korea, Democratic People's Republic of (North Korea)
lebanon
Liberia
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Macau
Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Rep. of
Moldova, Republic of
Monaco
Myanmar
nigeria
Northern Mariana Islands
Pakistan
Paraguay
Puerto Rico
South Georgia and S. Sandwich Isls.
Sudan
syrian Arab Republic
Tokelau
Uzbekistan
virgin islands us
Western Sahara
Yugoslavia
Zaire
Zimbabwe

Note that places like Puerto Rico are deleted because they are considered US States (they also show up in the US state list).

2.Yes, I did delete the above from the Location/Taxes--Countries.

5. I realized that if the country doesn't have a state list, ZenCart already lets you put it in freeform. But I did change the minimum zip code from 4 to 3 because countries like Taiwan have a 3-digit zip code (configuration/minimum values/post code).

I left it as a required field, but I see from posts that Ireland doesn't use postal codes. So I'm going to:

1. Update my screen to say something like "enter 'none' for no postal code
2. Make sure the address format file doesn't print the post code for Ireland so that 'none' doesn't show in the address.

Are there any other countries you know of that don't have a postal code?

I'd still like to hear some thoughts about question 3 above--what is the best method to ship internationally? And also question 4--are there countries I should not ship to even though Paypal allows me to collect money from them?

Anything else I should know? Is there any little trick to charge extra handling for the foreign orders?

Thanks.

I don't know what kind of items you are selling, but a Global Priority Flat Rate envelope is best for smaller items. And I think you don't have to stand in line at the PO, either; you can put it in a drop box.

As for what (other) countries not to sell to, I bet the USPS web site has that info.

As to the customers that bailed, maybe the shipping costs scared them off? I mean, by the time you add up the currency conversion fee, higher shipping cost, and additional handling fees . . . The most I remember paying for shipping from the States was $18 for a pair of Converse stuffed into a Global Priority envelope. (I wanted them BADLY, and it was still $20 cheaper than buying them in Europe.)

You may want to consider your time at the PO as a cost-of-doing-business thing, a trade-off for increased sales in the expanded international market. Just a thought.