Why do so many of the US Guys don't sell to Europe?

eygen said:
Sure, it'll take longer than normal but if I want to buy something in the US that's my choice isn't it.
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That's only part of it. All it takes is a few stories about sellers losing their knives and money to make the extra long wait nerve-wracking. When the really popular knives sell so fast on the US market, it reduces the pressure to sell elsewhere.
 
FriskyDingo said:
I won't sell to europeans if the knives are illegal in their country. Too much liability, and I never advocate breaking the law, regardless of how stupid they may seem.
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Can't fault you here, I wouldn't do it either.

It's not europeans only tho, I don't like shipping out of the country period. Gives me ulcers.
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That's not good. I think this is an unknown side effect of selling outside the US? You should consider warning your fellow countrymen who do still take this risk. :D
 
i've gone the way of "shipping anywhere outside of US as long as you pay in paypal gift option, in return I'll offer a discount for sharing the risk". I have enough references that this works for the determined buyer and it puts my mind at ease.
 
Interesting thread.Some really unlucky people on here.As a one time UK dealer i must have imported upwards of 5,000 knives into the UK.Not once have any been delayed by UK customs for more than a day or two and not once have any been confiscated.

Only countries i've had problems shipping to is Canada & Australia (on the odd occasion long delays at customs) and Italy (items seem to go missing in the mail quite frequently).
 
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lava_lamp said:
I don't ship outside of the US because:

  1. I can print a US label online and drop it in a box at the post office at my convenience. With international, I have to fill out a customs form, got to the post office and wait 30 minutes to see a clerk in person.
  2. Shipping internationally is much more expensive.
  3. Shipping internationally doesn't provide any tracking, proof of delivery, or insurance through the post office. UPS does, but is extremely expensive.
  4. I've tried shipping internationally maybe a half-dozen times. One package never arrived, one arrived broken and the two took a long time with lots of emails from the buyer accusing me of not sending it in the first place.
  5. Buyers don't want to pay extra for the extra postage.
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You can print either thru paypal, the USPS web page, UPS web page or FedEx web page an international label complete with the customs forms. The UPS webpage is a pain in the ass to use.

Shipping internationally does track. It is slower, but it does track thru any of these formats. If you require insurance, ship it UPS or FedEx.

As far as the expense - if my buyer does not wish to pay for international shipping, I will not sell it to him. I am happy to eat the $5-7 shipping cost inside the US and build that into my selling price, but you are correct - postal express or common carrier shipping internationally is pricey and it needs to get covered somehow. Just add something to your sales thread like "Outside US pays all shipping charges."

If you ship internationally via fedex, UPS or global express mail, depending on where it is going, you should have no trouble. Pack it WELL and assume it will be opened at customs, so only have paperwork matching your customs information inside.

But at the end of the day, if you are not happy selling outside the US, it's 100% your perogative not to do so.
 
We have had mostly good luck with overseas sales, as we have sold to about 15 countries. When you use the USPS online shipping service, you have access to read the customs restrictions, etc. That is usually our only hesitation, if it is not allowed in that country. We have backed out of one deal that either we had a language barrier or something, but we just couldn't understand what he exactly wanted us to do and sounded ''fishy''.

We had one knife that was damaged on its way to Bulgaria, but it was returned to us and I made a new knife and sent it back no problem.
 
Keep in mind that knifemakers and dealers do this sort of thing for a living. Someone who sells or ships a few knives a year is not going to be familiar with these procedures. Every time is a first time.

I had a few packages to send overseas and had all the paperwork ready to go, including customs forms. I got to the PO and found all the forms I needed had just been changed. I had to do them all over again.

Not a big deal for me. I used to design forms for USPS. But someone else who had struggled with the first set might be seriously discouraged if he had to do them again.
 
morrowj_98 said:
Here is a point I should have made earlier. I'm a firm believer that the deal isn't done until both parties are happy. If I sell a knife and something bad happens....no matter what I'm not going to feel right about it.
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That's what it boils down to for me. Something, anything, goes wrong and it's a much bigger deal to resolve.
 
I shipped one package internationally. It is kind of a pain but that wasn't the problem. The problem for most sellers is probably people pay for something and they expect it on their doorstep in a week or so. Sellers probably don't want to risk bad reputation over a deal they cannot control. You can always get blamed for stuff customs does.

You mail an international package, Buyer asks you questions when he doesn't receive it :
1. Did you package it good enough?
2. Did you declare it as a kitchen or camping tool?
3. Did you mail it in a bag?

Probably a bunch more questions too, either way sellers don't like the risk of shipping international.
 
Bill86 said:
The problem for most sellers is probably people pay for something and they expect it on their doorstep in a week or so.
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I can attest to this. Recently I took on some CRM for a vendor, he started selling internationally and had a few customers that verged on the insanely impatient.

A couple of them stood out in particular by sending multiple emails daily demanding to know why the package hasn't arrived yet after less than a week even though the tracking number and website was provided in every communication. Pretty much nothing we said ever registered, one guy kept on sending the SAME email over and over and over...

And once the package has been delivered, all communications ceased from their end, we couldn't even get a confirmation that they have actually took possession of the package.
 
Weird thing about shipping from the US to Europe is the wildly varying durations.
I recently bought an SMF from MonkeyDepot and it arrived in 2 days (FedEx), and it wasn't especially expensive to ship either.
Most items take 10 days, sometimes it takes 4 weeks. Often Dutch Customs gets in the way, but just as often they aren't even involved.
Just totally unpredictable.
 
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