Cross-Border Shipping Challenges

The world has become one big online marketplace. European consumers buy from American online shops while American consumers shop on Indian sites. Now that a variety of payment solutions allow for quick and secure international transactions, merchants all over the world get more and more order requests from buyers outside their home country. But many of these merchants, especially smaller ones, have trouble actually getting their products to their customers since shipping solutions are often inconsistent, unreliable, and needlessly opaque.  

Shipping is the last barrier to Flat World eCommerce®. Yakit solves this problem, as the best Cross Border Drop Shipping Solution.

Technology driven cross border drop shipping

The Challenge

Finding an optimal solution for cross-border ecommerce delivery is a significant and important challenge. A company may invest considerable time and effort creating a unique and compelling online buying experience for international consumers; however, customers will be deterred if delivery does not work as expected.

One key element of international ecommerce shipping is customs. As shipments travel across borders, customs authorities in the country where the buyer lives, inevitably want to get their piece of cake. They request that merchants provide detailed information about each shipment entering the country.  Many ecommerce shipping solutions provide Delivered Duty Unpaid (DDU) shipping, which means that the buyer is responsible for paying any duties and/or VAT levied for importing his shipment into the country.  DDU results in a terrible ecommerce delivery experience because these costs are hidden from the buyer at the time of online purchase―so they're in for an unpleasant surprise later.  The customs agent will invoice the buyer for any duties and VAT as well as a possible customs clearance fee.  Because of this unexpected cost, customers often return ecommerce shipments, resulting in additional costs for the merchant. In some countries, such as Germany, the buyer will even need to travel to one of only a few customs offices in the country in order to pay any duties, taxes, and customs clearance fees on-site prior to collecting his shipment.

The Yakit Cross Border Ecommerce Shipping Solution

Yakit provides a ecommerce delivery solution which is Delivered Duty Paid (DDP). This means that any duties and taxes as well as potential customs clearance fees are paid by the merchant, which eliminates any surprises for the buyer and greatly improves the shipping experience.  But now the merchant needs to know what the duties, taxes, and customs clearance fees will be for each of their shipments.  Yakit solves this problem by calculating these values in advance based on the items in the online basket and including them in the total landed cost (TLC)―the customer's final cost for their purchase, including shipping and customs.  Since Yakit guarantees the TLC, buyers always pay exactly the value shown during checkout. Yakit system further supports the merchant by providing all necessary data in required formats for customs authorities in the country of import.  All the merchant needs to do is prepare his shipments using the Yakit Shipper GUI or API and pay for the job.  The Yakit shipping system will then dispatch the shipments and notify the customs agent of the country of import about upcoming shipments to be cleared.

How Merchants Benefit

Yakit's guaranteed TLC pre-calculation allows the merchant to know the exact total landed cost for any particular basket (he can then decide whether to display this amount to customers at the time of online purchase or keep it for internal cost calculations). Using Yakit’s DDP delivery service, merchants will greatly improve their customers' delivery experience, resulting in more orders and fewer returns.

Cross Border Ecommerce Shipping has never been easier and more accurate than with Yakit, your International Ecommerce Shipping Software Platform.

Yakit can integrate in your shipping cart platform and we have a Shopify App in the Shopify Store Here