Products on the V Graham Norton Show

What issues are there with shipping from the US to the UK

[nipear]

I just got an email exchange stuck on my desk from our CEO and someone at the V Graham Norton Show. They want to feature our products on their show, and plug our website.

My questions are what are the issues in shipping from the US to the UK? And what are average shipping costs? Our products are from 1 to 4 lbs, and are priced from $20 to $70. I ask this because we charge a flat rate for shipping and likely would do so on UK orders also.

[Tony_Perry]

As well as owning a seo company I also own half an import business. One of the countries we import from is the USA. So, here goes!

Your products will be liable for import duty at the relavant rate. Thee are different rates for different products. This duty is paid on the value of the landed price here in the UK. Landed price is the value of the product plus the cost of shipping and also the insurance. You will then have to pay VAT on top of all this.

All the big shipping companies fly to London every day and they will qoute you a price from the states.

If you want to sell to the Brits you should have stock over here so you realy need to cut a deal with someone who n knows what they are doing!

[sem4u]

If the website is featured on the show let us know how you got on and if there was a good increase in sales.

The Graham Norton Show is one of Channel 4's most popular TV programmes and is currently been shown after Big Brother.

[dmorison]

If there is any doubt as to how your domain name or brand name is articulated verbally, bring it up with them.

Your contact at the production team will be able to liase with the script writers (and probably Graham himself) to make sure that your page is announced correctly.

The last thing you want is a good plug, but for Graham to read out the URL incorrectly.

[nipear]

It will be interesting to see what happens. We are trying to get on some U.S. morning shows with our products and I think this will help out with that. At least we can send out a promo pack/press release with the Graham Norton show info...

A similar story...

One of my competitors in another market was featured on a late night show in the U.S. as a gag. In fact they were making fun of their products. They got hundreds on new links from local media outlets picking up the story, bloggers, and other info sites. The net result was they got a lot of orders (according to our supplier), a PR7, and some great anchor text...

So if we get anything like that I’ll be happy

[Rachel]

nipear, I have several customers overseas that I ship to. When we first opened, my post office lady told me that if customers could keep their orders under 4 pounds, the order could ship as a letter, even if it's in a box. It's hard for most of my customers to keep their order under 4 pounds, but it seems like it might work well for you if most customers would just be buying one of your products.

Go to USPS's site and type in 1#, 2#, 3#, and 4# into their online rate calculator to get your price range and you might be able to come up with a flat shipping rate that works for you.

Congratulations!

Rachel