Hello fellows.

We are currently working on developing a "certain"product we plan to export to Europe and America.

The plan is to build an e-commerce website (online shop), customers make order and pay online, and we ship the products to them via air freight. Kindly assist me in answering the following questions:

1. Can we receive payments online like escrow, so as to make customers feel secure? If yes how do we go about it?

2. What is the average cost (per Kg) of shipping products to the said destination?

3. Which is better? Shipping the products ourselves or outsourcing the job to delivery companies like Dhl, etc.

Thank you in anticipation of you inputs.

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agonbello: Hello fellows.

We are currently working on developing a "certain"product we plan to export to Europe and America.

The plan is to build an e-commerce website (online shop), customers make order and pay online, and we ship the products to them via air freight. Kindly assist me in answering the following questions:

1. Can we receive payments online like escrow, so as to make customers feel secure? If yes how do we go about it?

2. What is the average cost (per Kg) of shipping products to the said destination?

3. Which is better? Shipping the products ourselves or outsourcing the job to delivery companies like Dhl, etc.

Thank you in anticipation of you inputs.

Hello, Paypal is a good starting point because it collect payments on your behalf and at the same time the buyer can request a refund via paypal where you failed to deliver the goods.

Building an ecommerce website, is easier than adding the actual products into the inventory, especially if you have a large list of products. Also your ability to manage the store online and offline, it's not a one person's job.

Average cost per KG varies, you have DHL, UPS and others, you would need to contact these companies, tell them exactly what you want to do and they will give you their best quotes. I believe you will get discounts based on the numbers of orders you process through them. You will find out that this is another area you need to watch closely.

You may find shipping the product yourself a bit tedious, unless you have a great workforce, then you would need to think about the shipping costs, again this is a very important are.

As I wrote above, you would need to contact all the available shipping companies to weigh your options.

And finally, there is what we call drop-shipping, this only applies if you are ordering your products from the original manufacturer. In this case you would be able to order the products from the manufacturer and instruct them to deliver it to your customer. Most manufacturers abroad are happy to do this, because it doesn't cost them more than shipping the item to you anyway. And at the same time, you don't have to pay additional fee for the drop-shipping.

The grey-area of drop-shipping is returns, where the customer is not happy with the item or received a defected products. If the item is heavy, this becomes a problem for your customer to return due to the amount it will cost. This shouldn't be a problem if it's a light-weight item we are talking about.

Hope this helps

WebHostingPal:

Hello, Paypal is a good starting point because it collect payments on your behalf and at the same time the buyer can request a refund via paypal where you failed to deliver the goods.

Building an ecommerce website, is easier than adding the actual products into the inventory, especially if you have a large list of products. Also your ability to manage the store online and offline, it's not a one person's job.

Average cost per KG varies, you have DHL, UPS and others, you would need to contact these companies, tell them exactly what you want to do and they will give you their best quotes. I believe you will get discounts based on the numbers of orders you process through them. You will find out that this is another area you need to watch closely.

You may find shipping the product yourself a bit tedious, unless you have a great workforce, then you would need to think about the shipping costs, again this is a very important are.

As I wrote above, you would need to contact all the available shipping companies to weigh your options.

And finally, there is what we call drop-shipping, this only applies if you are ordering your products from the original manufacturer. In this case you would be able to order the products from the manufacturer and instruct them to deliver it to your customer. Most manufacturers abroad are happy to do this, because it doesn't cost them more than shipping the item to you anyway. And at the same time, you don't have to pay additional fee for the drop-shipping.

The grey-area of drop-shipping is returns, where the customer is not happy with the item or received a defected products. If the item is heavy, this becomes a problem for your customer to return due to the amount it will cost. This shouldn't be a problem if it's a light-weight item we are talking about.

Hope this helps

Thank you very much sir. I am very much satisfied with you input. Regarding Paypal, I thought Nigerians are limited, in the sense that we can't accept payment into our paypal account. Thanks once again sir, and remain blessed.