"Worst" ecommerce nations.

Your experience.

[jecasc]

We do a lot of international shipments and over the years I have gotten the impression that there are certain trends with orders from certain nations. My top list of "problem" countries:

Britain
- Customers are sloppy with their address information. Who cares for missing house numbers or company names.

Irish
- if they would only start using a post code system. And house numbers instead of house names.

Taiwan
- high order volumes, but usually they change their order three times before you can ship.

Germany
- constantly asking for discounts

Italy
- how can a parcel intended for a customer in Rome be delivered to someone in Florence? (Happened more than once, with different locations.)

Switzerland
- very economical customers pay by bank-tranfer and choose "BEN" for the fees. (BEN = recipient of payment pays all fees).

Spain: I hope they will figure out how Paypal works someday. Sometimes I feel like I am working in Paypal customer support.

No problems at all:
- Customers from Scandinavia: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden - they simply order and order and I can't remember ever having had any problems.

I wonder if this is only me or a general trend. I have to add that most orders are without any problems, but if there are "problems" it seem to be always the same problems.

[jwolthuis]

Britain - Customers are sloppy with their address information. Who cares for missing house numbers or company names.

Good observations. I'd add that the format for British addresses seem inconsistent. I don't blame them for not knowing their official address. We cleanse all British orders on Royal Mail's website by doing a "Find an Address" search using their Postcode. The Postcode seems to be the only logical piece of a British address.

Switzerland - very economical customers ...

lol, that seems to describe all of our customers :) Also, BEN seems to be consistent with credit card-style payments, yes?

Question: Is your site multi-lingual, and do you offer a German translation? We've been doing eSales for 8 years, shipping worldwide like you, and have exactly 0 orders from Germany (plenty from the other countries you mention). Our site is English-only, and accepts PayPal or Visa/MC for payment. Wondering if Germans don't use PayPal, or are looking for German-only sites?

[jecasc]

Our website is multilingual. Papyal is popular in Germany however if you want to target german customers IMHO you need a website in german language. I guess it's because Germany has the biggest population in Europe and customers can get everything in german shops. I think customers from smaller countries like Denmark, Belgium are more likely to order internationally.

[piatkow]

I'd add that the format for British addresses seem inconsistent.

It isn't but the Great British Public simply refuse to accept the simplified format that has been introduced over the years.

From the reverse point of view I would put the USA top as so many webmasters don't seem to bw aware that there is a world outside the 50 states and insist that you select one for an overseas order.

[votrechien]

Canada- Frequently can't understand why they're being charged international postage and customs for orders from the USA.

PS I'm Canadian so I know this behaviour all too well.

[dpd1]

Yeah, I've found UK and some other country's addresses to be kind of squirrely. You get the ones where there's like 5 different named things, and they switch the order around. Lots of times I'm like... OK, I guess I'm supposed to know what "Smansormanson" is, or whatever. Is that the town, or the county, or what? Thank god for Wikipedia.

Ironically, Canada's customs seems to be the most anal. I've had stuff disappear for a month there a few times.

I've always wondered why I rarely get anybody from Germany, as I do get many other people from Europe. Now I'm wondering if it's the language thing.

Yes, there are many people in the US that think sending something to another country is some huge endeavor. I have to admit that I didn't do it right in the beginning. I have a couple competitors that flat out refuse, which is fine with me... More biz for me.

[topr8]

>>The Postcode seems to be the only logical piece of a British address.

all that's required in UK is the house/apartment number and the post code.

i'd add usa too - customers don't understand why next day international shipping is so expensive!

[jecasc]

I've always wondered why I rarely get anybody from Germany, as I do get many other people from Europe. Now I'm wondering if it's the language thing.

There is another thing besides the language that comes to my mind. You need to offer at least one alternative to credit card payments. Credit cards are not very popular in Germany. Population of 82 million, only 19 million credit cards. Compare that to the US: 310 million people, 1.6 billion credit cards. Most people use their bank account and debit cards for payments. So you are more likely to attract german customers if you offer bank-transfer or at least Paypal or another payment service that offers payment through bank accounts. Not cheques though - not in use anymore in most european countries.

[Leosghost]

Not cheques though - not in use anymore in most european countries.

Cheques are still very big in France..generational thing..most people here use cheques for "face to face payments..in preference to "plastic"..over 40's use cheques for maybe half of their online purchases ..as the age goes up, cheque use does, for both online and off line purchases.

[dpd1]

Yeah, I do virtually all foreign stuff through PP.

Going to the market in France must be fun with all those checks. ;-)

[Leosghost]

Market traders are loath to accept checks ..and one is not obliged by law to accept checks..( kiting/bouncing a check is not illegal here ..just gets you into trouble with "La Banque de France" ..and the issuing bank )..so usually people pay cash at markets ..but even so around 10 to 25% of purchases at street markets in France ..are paid for by check...traders just ask for one or two pieces of id with photos depending on the size of the check..shops always ask for Photo ID.

I never take checks..now..got burned once, here in the early nineties for a $20,000.oo equivalent value check ..and a short time later another one for around $60,000.oo bounced..( went to see the guy..took him to his bank ..got my money cash ;-)..since then, letters of credit,bank transfers, certified cheques or cash..and on line for small purchases I take plastic, with safeguards..

[dpd1]

Wow, 60k check. Yeah, there's too much room for fraud with those. I had a friend's tenant give him an official federal reserve bank check for about 6k back rent. He took it to them and they were like... Uh... 'This isn't one of our checks. This didn't come from us'. How dumb do you gotta be to give somebody a fake fed reserve bank check, when they know where you live.

[dpd1]

BTW... Does anybody have any experience/suggestions about Russia? I recently had a little boom from some people there. I looked around and found that people didn't seem to have too many good things to say about sending stuff there. Also, it's one of the countries that the PO requires you drop stuff in person for, which is a pain.