Low Risk Shipping Countires

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I am planning on increasing my shipping destinations which is currently UK only but would be interested on peoples views on which countires to avoid from the bottom list below.

I have already dropped the obvious countries to avoid such as Romaina and Hungary.

My current list is as follows:
Europe: UK, Channel Islands, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
Rest if the World: USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

I am also considering the following countries:
Balaeric Islands
Corsica
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Gibraltar
Greece
Iceland
Luxembourg
Madeira
Malta
Monaco
Norway
Poland
San Marino
Switzerland
Canary Islands

[guccij]

I have already dropped the obvious countries to avoid such as Romaina and Hungary.

Not so sure you're on the right track here. They're both in the EU. While Romania certainly had a problem in the last, it's cleaned up its act mightily recently.
At the very least, you should add all EU countries, plus Switzerland and Norway. The ones to avoid are Russia and all its satellites.

[TraceyHand]

Not so sure you're on the right track here. They're both in the EU. While Romania certainly had a problem in the last, it's cleaned up its act mightily recently.

From personal experience, I completely disagree.

I know some people don't like the idea of alienating potential genuine customers by barring countries altogether but we have HUGE problems with Romania, even now.
The fact that they are part of the EU is irrelevent!
Obviously, it's personal choice but I, for one, think that dropping Romania in particular is a wise move (depending on how high risk your items are, of course)

Just watch out for the customers from your 'barred' countries who may try to select a different country at checkout instead. Ours do to the point that we have now had to bar Romania at Protx too so no one with a Romanian IP address can pay, regardless of whether they chose Germany as their country It's not perfect but it's another hurdle

[bentleybloke]

As a naturally suspicious person, I don't accept credit cards from anywhere but UK/Ireland. It's easy to judge a person face to face (although chip and pin negates this ), but that defence is lost in the online World. My goods are relatively high value and don't have colossal profit margins, some as little as 15%. You also have to consider that if you export the goods and it is fraudulent, you have also lost the shipping costs as well as the cost of the goods.

[grantglendinnin]

We've shipped barbecues numerous times to Hungary and have never had a problem. If the customer is willing to pay the postage costs, I certainly ain't got a problem. Though I do draw the line on my friend William who wants to buy a £10k spa for delivery to his brothers girlfriends dogs friends owner who just happens to live in Ghana. He is a kind guy though, he offered to pick it up with his courier and pay postage costs!

[TraceyHand]

nice one, Grant
I bet he offered to transfer the money direct to your bank account too, eh?

[pinbrook]

To me it simply depends on how much risk you want to take.

The risk could increase dependant on your product range and order value.

We've recently opened up to more of the newer EU countries and not had anything go bad as yet, but we sell low risk items.

There's no easy answer, its up to you to assess the potential risk and decide if you want to take a punt...

[Darren B]

I wont ship to anyone out side of the eu, except to the swiss, norway, finland e.t.c but is till have a block on eastern europe as far as im concerned these are no go, i have had enough fraud attempts not to trust these anymore.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

My goods are low risk items (golf tees mainly at present) but would still prefer to take a cautious approach and have already discounted most of the Eastern European countries.
I have decided to ship to the non-EU countries of Switzerland and Norway.

Does anyone have concerns with the EU countries of Poland, Greece or the Czech Republic.

Are the non EU countries of Iceland, San Marino and Canary Islands considered safe.


Also do you have concerns over Turkey which I have seen on a list of higher risk countries.

[guccij]

Are the non EU countries of Iceland, San Marino and Canary Islands considered safe.

As far as I know, Iceland is not known for its golf courses but you never know, all those ex pat Scots...
As for San Marino, the population is about 3 and a half (plus a dog).
Canary Islands is to Spain what the Channel Islands are to GB.

[grantglendinnin]

Does anyone have concerns with the EU countries of Poland, Greece or the Czech Republic.

We've shipped a few times to Greece, no problems there. Same with Czech Republic - and only once to Poland. No issues there either, though one sale isn't something I'd put trust in.

Are the non EU countries of Iceland, San Marino and Canary Islands considered safe.

Shipping costs to Canary Islands are through the roof at the moment (we use Parceline/DPD and Parcelforce) - both give rather extortionate prices compared to other European countries.

Also do you have concerns over Turkey which I have seen on a list of higher risk countries.

Turkey is a known fraudsters hotspot - as is Greece - I'd happily ship to Turkey providing the customer pays the postage costs.

One thing I always do with international sales is check with various search engines to ensure there's nobody else kicking up a stink with that zip code/town

[pinbrook]

the postal service in greece is somewhat haphazard.

Make sure you have good terms and conditions to cover loss.

[NicolaUK]

Am I in a minority in shipping pretty much anywhere then?

Have had no problems with Poland, Hungary, Greece. I ship loads of stuff to Norway/Switzerland/US/Canada. The only people that have tried it on have been some Australian fairly high value orders that were obviously dodgy and some in Ghana changing their country to US

[guccij]

Am I in a minority in shipping pretty much anywhere then?

You're not alone. We ship all over the place, too apart from Africa.

We keep our eyes peeled and take note of any warning (we use Protx and HSBC and they're pretty good) and act according to the risk as we judge it.

To be honest, we have had proportionally far far more fraudulent efforts from the UK than from anywhere else. Haven't fallen for any of them. Yet.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Thanks for all the points of view which will be helpful in deciding which countries to ship to.

Below are a few links to other webpages that are related to this discussion which may be of interest.
http://www.cartserver.com/americart/faq-fr.html
http://www.onlinefraudguide.com/risk-countries-fraud/
http://www.tele-pro.co.uk/e-commerce...-countries.htm

I was surprised to see "Belgium" listed at the second link and thought the statement in the first link was an over-exaggeration.

The vast majority of orders from the following countries are FRAUDULENT