If you want your organization to benefit from the global economy, take heed. As an American who lives in Canada and has family and friends on both sides of the border, I can say we have a long way to go before international e-commerce becomes a pleasant experience -- or, often, even a successful experience.
Let's take an issue that hit me recently as an example: iTunes gift cards. My mother wanted to purchase some for my husband's birthday. She lives in the US, and since so often gift cards can only be used in one country, she couldn't purchase them in a US Apple store.
So I went to Apple Canada's site and found the gift cards link. I sent it to my mother, who soon reported that there was no way for her to enter a US address and credit card, leading to the realization that there is no way for someone in the US to purchase an iTunes gift card for someone in Canada, short of driving across the border. That's a bit of a commute for someone in Florida.
My mother ended up sending a check. Of course my husband is happy for the gift regardless, but Apple completely lost the sale. Once someone resorts to sending a check or cash, there's no guarantee that the recipient will spend the money at the store the sender intended.
Of course, this issue crops up with more than gift cards. It's depressing how often I have to give up, or a family or friend has to give up, when trying to arrange a purchase or gift. Once my brother in the US tried to order a gift from Future Shop
in Canada and have it delivered, and the gift never arrived. He had to call to find out that his credit card had been declined for being in the US. The site had reported a successful transaction and never notified him otherwise.
Then there are the companies that have international arms but only really stock one of them. For the longest time, Amazon Canada only carried books, and it was impossible to get anything but books and CDs from Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) sent to Canada. If you wanted, say, to pre-order a video game through Amazon you had to have it sent to a US address from the US store, even if you were in Canada. Today that's changed, but there are many goods that you still can't order from Amazon Canada that are available on Amazon US, and you can't get a lot of them shipped across the border either.
Now, I know there are certain realities involved. Some goods are impossible or very difficult to ship across certain borders, like fruit, flowers, and many cheeses and meats (just try sending a gift basket across a border). Sometimes there are legal issues around digital media. For example, only Americans can get streaming music service Pandora because of international music licensing issues.
Other realities are financial. With international corporations, each country's arm (Apple US, Apple Canada, etc.) is an independent entity. So handling gift cards internationally brings up important accounting issues. There's also the problem of credit card fraud, requiring extra care around online purchases. All of these problems are real and complicated things, but they're not insurmountable, and by taking the easy way out a lot of companies are losing out on significant sales.
Not only that, but since many companies aren't clear on their policies up front, they waste a lot of people's time going through sometimes complex order processes just to find out that they can't complete the sale. I know that, personally, it's enough to turn me off of buying online, and sometimes even off of buying at all. While my wallet appreciates a frugal decision, it's not great for a company's bottom line when no one buys. And I'm tired of being embarrassed (or making people feel embarrassed) by suggesting gift cards from companies that make it painful and ultimately impossible, so I'll probably stop doing that, too.
Let's not forget the sites that do allow cross-border purchases but seem to think every country follows the same postal code format, making it impossible for anyone outside their country to complete the transaction. Some sites reject you if you live in one country and your credit card comes from a another country (a scenario that's more common than you'd think). I can't change my iTunes account to use the iTunes Canada store because of this, and I'm not even trying to make a purchase.
Somewhere along the way, we need to find the right balance among customer service, credit card security, border restrictions, and making a global economy work. Even the ability to walk into a physical Apple store, for example, and order a gift card for someone in another country would be better than the situation as it stands now. There has to be a more Internet-enabled solution as well. At this point I would be happy to jump through a few hoops to do pre-verification rather than put up with this anymore. And I know I'm not the only one.
Unless your organization focuses on those who prefer to shop local at all costs, you need to give this some thought.
— Dee-Ann LeBlanc (www.Dee-AnnLeBlanc.com) has been a computing professional for the last 20 years.
for someone to do a universal application that takes a "to address" and based on the country starts to format the address correctly for that particular country.
Don't get me started on iTunes ... For the longest time, Canadians couldn't buy apps with iTunes gift cards. There was no explanation for why. Some of the language on the Apple Canada site still says you can't do it, but you can.
And like I said, I can't change my iTunes to Canada because my credit/debit card is from a bank in the US, even though the address assigned to the card is Canadian. Given that if an iTunes account gets hacked, the hacker can spend money ordering things that Apple may not even refund, I would rather use gift cards than my credit card with them anyway. I resent that I HAVE to register a credit card with them.
I actually has gone through your experience. I was in the States for 3 years and just got back to my home country 3 months ago. I knew that I would not be able to use Netflix outside of the US. But, what got me really frustrated was when I wanted to buy Apple iphone app and I couldnot because my IP is shown as non US user. I had to ask my relative in the US to buy me the iTunes gift card and mail me the serial number.
I live in Russia( I am originally from Russia) but my family lives in Germany.Well, they didn't give me a choice of secure scan, but everything was ok.
Well, in Russia, the option billing adress mailing adress is not so important as in the States I think, for example, when I buy tickets for a train, I do not even write my adress, I only write my credit card number and secure code of 3 digits on the reverse side of the card.
If it's so hard across "the world's longest undefended border" I can just imagine how much worse it has to be from other countries. You don't even have the option of opening a mailbox on the other side of a border. I'm very sympathetic.
That's interesting about having to scan your credit card and send the scan. I hope they gave you a secure way to do that.
Are you originally from Germany? Do you have a credit card from there? If so, does it cause problems having a German card with a Russian address?
At least, you live on the same continent with your family and US and Canada are next to each other. I live in Russia, my family lives in Germany, my friends live all over the world. I remember, I wanted to send a present for my friend who lived in San Francisco, so I had to scan my credit card and send to the store. I also have to mention that sometimes the stores just do not deliver in Russia, or in Europe. There are so many great prices for shoes and clothes at online stores, but we are only watching- since there is no international delivery in most of them.
Some stores do not accept credit cards from Russia( don't ask me why), so it is really complicated to buy something on line.
Yes. I've got it down to an art as to what I order in Canada vs. the US. I won't mention any names here, but sometimes it's far better to get a uniquely Canadian company for online purposes. I have found a couple of companies that seem to do well on both sides of the border -- LL Bean comes to mind. Last time I checked, even Bean doesn't their credit card privileges to Canadian customers. Perhaps that's changed or changing.
You mean like how so many books have a Canadian price on the back that was set back when the Canadian dollar was significantly lower than the US, rather than routinely at par and regularly popping up to higher than the US dollar? Makes it almost stupid to buy books on the Canadian side of the border.
And yes, the fees can get ridiculous. Bleh. The tax stuff often seems at its most complex for local sales though, like in the same state.
Ha! One friend I know has stuff shipped in the US to her sister in the Northeastern US; then the sister combines stuff and reships it regular mail or FedEx. That saves a lot of extra shipping costs.
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