We are looking to add an international shipping partner to enable us to offer international shipping on our shopsite sites.
We are currently being courted by Bongo International but they dont actually have a drop in module for shopsite so it would require some coding work to get it intergrated.
I also notice that GlobalShopEx is integrated in the latest version of Shopsite but this is a company we have never heard of before.
Does anyone have any experience with either of these companies for their shopsite site, and has some insight into their experiences with same?
If you worked with Bongo how easy was it to get connected, pass order info, etc?
Bongo International or GlobalshopEx
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johnbiggscr
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:41 pm
- Location: Cedar Rapids
Re: Bongo International or GlobalshopEx
Just be sure you understand what these services actually are before you waste much time. I thought that they just "processed" the administrative part of the international order and charged a small fee for the order-taking and customs/ duties handling and I still shipped the order to the customer myself. I was clueless until I called them (Global shopex) maybe a year ago, and it actually took me a while to figure out what service they actually offer (and what, if any, benefits they offered) even while I had them on the phone...and I'm not typically dense about such things. I believe they have since updated the website to more clearly explain their process since then.
They wanted to receive a discount (It's been a year or longer, but I think it was 10% - 15% below wholesale - not retail) on my products and have me send them the products and they would ship them. After paying to ship the stuff to shopex, and giving them wholesale plus an additional discount, I'd be lucky to make any profit at all. The cut that they wanted was ridiculous in my opinion. If I have to pack and ship the order anyways, why would I pay them 10% - 15% on top of my 50% wholesale discount to just slap a label on the package and re-mail it when I can take an extra 5 minutes to fill out the customs form on USPS.com or Paypal.com and mail it internationally myself. The USPS module on shopsite will calculate international shipping costs quite accurately. I know shopex takes care of making sure the customer understands how much they have to pay in customs duties ahead of time, but in all the years that I've been in business, that has only been an issue a handful of times and I ship 1-3 packages internationally every day.
I'm sure their business model works for someone, or they wouldn't be in business. Maybe a much larger business than mine, but I'm thinking a much larger business could hire someone for far less than Shopex wants to handle their international shipping. It's not rocket science. I can't for the life of me figure out what the benefit is, and they couldn't explain it to me either. On a side note...the phone call I experienced did not have any sort of professional feel to it. I got the sense that I had called someone at home and that they didn't quite know how to explain what they did either.
They wanted to receive a discount (It's been a year or longer, but I think it was 10% - 15% below wholesale - not retail) on my products and have me send them the products and they would ship them. After paying to ship the stuff to shopex, and giving them wholesale plus an additional discount, I'd be lucky to make any profit at all. The cut that they wanted was ridiculous in my opinion. If I have to pack and ship the order anyways, why would I pay them 10% - 15% on top of my 50% wholesale discount to just slap a label on the package and re-mail it when I can take an extra 5 minutes to fill out the customs form on USPS.com or Paypal.com and mail it internationally myself. The USPS module on shopsite will calculate international shipping costs quite accurately. I know shopex takes care of making sure the customer understands how much they have to pay in customs duties ahead of time, but in all the years that I've been in business, that has only been an issue a handful of times and I ship 1-3 packages internationally every day.
I'm sure their business model works for someone, or they wouldn't be in business. Maybe a much larger business than mine, but I'm thinking a much larger business could hire someone for far less than Shopex wants to handle their international shipping. It's not rocket science. I can't for the life of me figure out what the benefit is, and they couldn't explain it to me either. On a side note...the phone call I experienced did not have any sort of professional feel to it. I got the sense that I had called someone at home and that they didn't quite know how to explain what they did either.