I am now tired of the international business.

[CakeHole]

Some tips (i used to ship DIY electronic projects worldwide)....

1) The BIGGEST THING Stop accepting Paypal for international orders. Paypal rarely take the sellers side so cut it out altogether for international shipping. Stops the silly fees also.

2) Accept Bankers cheque (legit orders will be happy to wait for that to clear) or Bank Transfer (we call it BACS in the UK) only for international orders.
Set up a second bank account to deal with nothing but your international orders. Set it up to transfer funds from that account to your main company account upon them ordering and depositing the money. Effectively the second account will always be empty. If a scammer then makes a complaint to the bank and the bank then comes after you it will take months to investigate, by then you will be able to prove the item was either received by the attempted scammer or that you refunded them if the order did not make it and comes back to you.
If that is too much hassle accept Credit Cards only and enforce that ONLY the card holders address can be delivered to (easily checked with a bank verification system, im assuming you have that facility in Canada) That also stops the scammers using stolen credit cards as they can not have an alternate delivery address to the card holder. PAYPAL AND WESTERN UNION is what scammers love to use as its almost anonymous.

3) Introduce a re-stocking fee for international orders which are cancelled (it wont be popular but it will be another deterrent to scammers) Set this fee to roughly whatever it costs to go to the shipper when the item/s arrive back in Canada and what you have to pay to get them back... Add on 5-10% on top of that calculations and make that your restocking fee.

4) Do not offer any Express shipping options for International orders, you are at the mercy of the shipper, customs and impatient children stamping their feet by doing that.

5) Limit the countries which can order from you, from my experience of International selling the countries which have the most common scammers are Africa, Russia, Bulgaria, Mexico, Argentina, Philippines and surrounding Islands/and or small (relatively speaking) Far East countries/continents. Also cut out shipping to The entire Middle East if you do (more down to politics than anything at the moment), if you have been shipping to any of them stop. (NOTE anyone reading, living there im sure you are honest individuals its the few that spoil it).

6) Put a maximum value LIMIT on international orders and make it per order. Only allow one shipping address to have an order in progress at a time. Scammers will often make a small order and when they know your systems and shipping methods place a larger order of several hundred dollars a month or two later and then try to get that order for free. If you impose a limit that stops that scam and also limits your losses to a minimum. (Id set it for around whatever a single set of refill ink goes for internationally)

7) Stop International shipping altogether if it gets that bad.

Hope those help you They are limitations but i as a UK dweller would still personally order even with those limitations in place, sure im more likely to look around locally first but the good rep you have on here those limitations above would not put me off ordering from you if you had an item i could not get at home.

 

[stratman]

@CakeHole -- possibly your best post ever. Nicely done! Would mandatory insurance be useful?

@mikling -- What is your practice for filling the small bottles with ink?

 

[mikling]

@CakeHole -- possibly your best post ever. Nicely done! Would mandatory insurance be useful?

@mikling -- What is your practice for filling the small bottles with ink?

poured directly from mfr gallon bottles to smaller containers then immediately sealed with induction sealing caps or self adhering sealing cap liners. Always new bottles from the bottle mfr. This is not the source or else other colors would be affected.

Cakehole a good set of rules however, the workaround is tedious. One thing I have realized is that Paypal and Credit card companies are there to make money, and not to be a fair payment processor. I remember them having approved payment and then coming back days later to remove funds because there was something wrong with the card they previously accepted from the buyer. I lost that. Wait a minute was it not that they were to check payments for me? So wrong. Credit card companies are from the same mould.

They make more money by having buyers use their services and the only way is to be loose with them and put the screws to the seller. After all, what is the seller to do. The same thing happened when Canadian supermarkets had to start accepting credit cards for groceries. The supermarkets hate it and small outfits get creamed but the purchaser wants it and the banks credit card processors just wait by the side knowing somebody is going to have to pay me. I just looked at the payment options sign the other day. Cash was the last thing they accepted and it was in smaller letters.

With Canadians holding record debt exceeding that of the USA when the GFC hit many are literally living from min payment to min payment. Credit expansion is what keeps the canadian economy going. With oil prices where they are now. It will be interesting in the next few months.

 

[mikling]

@CakeHole -- possibly your best post ever. Nicely done! Would mandatory insurance be useful?

@mikling -- What is your practice for filling the small bottles with ink?

Mandatory insurance. Nice concept. Now how much time are you willing to use to make a claim.
Yeah, no easy answers but I need less stress moving forward. I'm scaling back.

 

[stratman]

@mikling:

Thanks for the info.

That is really crappy how the seller gets screwed if PayPal rescinds their approval on a credit card. What the heck are they good for if they do not protect the transaction. If they OK the transaction and the credit card is later an issue, then PayPal should eat it. After all, PayPal is paid a percentage to be the payment conduit.

 

[Emulator]

Is it possible to sterilise the ink in the small delivery bottles with UV or other means, @pharmacist might know?

 

[Smile]

You might filter ink using syringe filters these filter down to 0.2 micron etc. But usual 4.5micron should be used if ink is pigment, else you can use smaller like 1micron etc.

UV would kill only on surface not below I think so shining into bottle will not work. However if you would pour ink into large flat container that would be possible, again only for dye inks.

 

[mikling]

@mikling:

Thanks for the info.

That is really crappy how the seller gets screwed if PayPal rescinds their approval on a credit card. What the heck are they good for if they do not protect the transaction. If they OK the transaction and the credit card is later an issue, then PayPal should eat it. After all, PayPal is paid a percentage to be the payment conduit.

Could not agree more. First they approve it for shipment, shipment gone. then rescind it, citing that the bank rescinded them because of a suspected stolen card Then I realized what was going on. Now you figure the game out. Make sure you invest in Paypal. I don't see a situation that Paypal pays out.

Put it on a matrix with the possibilities and you'll see. Same for credit card companies.

 

[mikling]

You might filter ink using syringe filters these filter down to 0.2 micron etc. But usual 4.5micron should be used if ink is pigment, else you can use smaller like 1micron etc.

UV would kill only on surface not below I think so shining into bottle will not work. However if you would pour ink into large flat container that would be possible, again only for dye inks.

UV on dye inks? You can do wonderful things with the water etc, but one thing dye does not like is UV or it should be avoided. In another post I mention the original source is likely tp have changed. It could be three or more levels deep. Also how effective is UV against spores? Don't know. Not my problem in making the ink.

 

[Smile]

UV on dye inks? You can do wonderful things with the water etc, but one thing dye does not like is UV or it should be avoided. In another post I mention the original source is likely tp have changed. It could be three or more levels deep. Also how effective is UV against spores? Don't know. Not my problem in making the ink.

Well yes the UV would not be the method of choice. However filtering ink and adding biocides would.