As the title says, why do a lot of (or possibly even most) European online retailers only ship locally (and to a minor extent to their direct neighbours)?
10 comments
I’m guessing it has to do with then having to comply with every local law, per country. Also, payment systems vary between countries, which is an added complexity.
They are just lazy to adjust, I feel.. Hate that most specialized shops from Germany do not ship to my country..
they also need to charge vat at the correct rate for the consumer recipient, which is complex.
A. It’s a lot of logistical headache for a potentially very small market, and potentially quite expensive.
B. Trying to capture a foreign market is expensive and has low return on investment unless you spend a lot of money, and I mean a lot.
Different countries have different price points for various reasons. Local pricing, VAT etc..
While antitrust laws prevent brands/suppliers from dictating where and what price retailers sell at.
They can sometimes get exclusivity for a certain country or area, so they want to maintain good relationships with the suppliers. If they sell across borders they would essentially be stepping on toes and potentially ruin their relationships with suppliers.
This is one of the reasons anyway
Regulations regarding language probably.
It is mandatory to translate everything to an official language – as there are 24 official EU languages a retailer must make sure all of them are covered which is crazy as you’ll end up with a phone book instead of a 10 page manual.
Neighboring countries sometimes share languages or have quite similar languages.
As a person who is starting an e-commerce shop myself now, the answer to this is: VAT, for small online retailers the translation of websites or shipping are the smallest problems, the different VAT rates for each country are real pain in the ass.
As someone who used to work in e-commerce, it’s the shipping costs and fear of not being able to pass it on to the customer
A real problem are different warantity and Product indications.
i live in Cyprus.
I hate it with passion when I visit a EU store that says “shipping to EU” I put something in the cart, go to checkout, i am forced to sign up before I can see shipping options and then Cyprus is the only EU member country not in the list.
10 comments
I’m guessing it has to do with then having to comply with every local law, per country. Also, payment systems vary between countries, which is an added complexity.
They are just lazy to adjust, I feel.. Hate that most specialized shops from Germany do not ship to my country..
they also need to charge vat at the correct rate for the consumer recipient, which is complex.
A. It’s a lot of logistical headache for a potentially very small market, and potentially quite expensive.
B. Trying to capture a foreign market is expensive and has low return on investment unless you spend a lot of money, and I mean a lot.
Different countries have different price points for various reasons. Local pricing, VAT etc..
While antitrust laws prevent brands/suppliers from dictating where and what price retailers sell at.
They can sometimes get exclusivity for a certain country or area, so they want to maintain good relationships with the suppliers. If they sell across borders they would essentially be stepping on toes and potentially ruin their relationships with suppliers.
This is one of the reasons anyway
Regulations regarding language probably.
It is mandatory to translate everything to an official language – as there are 24 official EU languages a retailer must make sure all of them are covered which is crazy as you’ll end up with a phone book instead of a 10 page manual.
Neighboring countries sometimes share languages or have quite similar languages.
As a person who is starting an e-commerce shop myself now, the answer to this is: VAT, for small online retailers the translation of websites or shipping are the smallest problems, the different VAT rates for each country are real pain in the ass.
As someone who used to work in e-commerce, it’s the shipping costs and fear of not being able to pass it on to the customer
A real problem are different warantity and Product indications.
i live in Cyprus.
I hate it with passion when I visit a EU store that says “shipping to EU” I put something in the cart, go to checkout, i am forced to sign up before I can see shipping options and then Cyprus is the only EU member country not in the list.