USA orders - Worth it?

[adamnichols45]

Hello i was just wondering - is it worth designing a us version of my website which sells items and advertise it on the american sites? Do many people sell goods to the usa from the uk?

thanks ever so much

[phantombookman]

A large portion of my business used to be to the US. All very easy to do, no problems, as such.

However trade collapsed after 9/11 and though it started to pick up again the level of the $ has kept things down since

[adamnichols45]

Thanks for replying - can i ask which payments system you used? Was you advertising on the us websites?

[steve]

We sell to the USA from the UK.

Two things make it difficult:-

1) The exchange rate - your goods end up being expensive.

2) Freight costs - it costs more to ship from the UK to the USA than the other way round!

We find it only works for specialist items, which are difficult to source in the USA.

[phantombookman]

All my sales are paid for using credit cards direct, nobody wants anything else.
They may use paypal etc if they have no choice but...

My sales through my main site are all sourced via search engines landing customers to internal pages.

I also sell on multi national reseller sites etc.
I had only 3 sales this morning, all to the USA!

[adamnichols45]

I will be using paypal to accept credit cards - do you think this may put some customers off?

[steve]

I will be using paypal to accept credit cards - do you think this may put some customers off?

I think it will depend on who your customers are and what you are selling.

I would be comfortable buying low value items for my hobbies etc. But for expensive items, or for business use I would walk away if the site didn't have 'proper' card processing.

[adamnichols45]

The items will range from £30 to about £100