One of the most difficult things to determine is whether or not an international order will end up as a fraudulent order. 

Will you ship the product only to find that it was a stolen card and because this crook is from a far away land -- you can hardly do anything about it?

What about trying to get a product through customs?  Is it worth the time and effort?

I'm pleased to announce that we are working with an international solution provider to REMOVE ALL THE RISK FROM INTERNATIONAL orders!

New FiftyOne service will improve international shopping experience and simplify international fulfillment

We are planning on integrating a leading-edge international ecommerce and logistics service later this year called FiftyOne into the Website Forge platform. 

FiftyOne is a service that will automatically present all of your products in foreign currencies to international visitors by detecting the country they are coming from, and for any international orders that results, FiftyOne eliminates all of the headaches associated with international order processing, including landed cost calculation, international shipping, credit card fraud and customs compliance. 

FiftyOne will:

• Convert your USD$ prices automatically into the buyer's local currency based on their IP address
• Calculate and guaranteed fully landed costs at checkout (i.e. complete end-to-end shipping, duties, taxes)
• Provide international payment processing and protection from international credit card fraud
• Pay you at order time in USD$
• Manages all customs clearance, brokerage, parcel tracking and end delivery (your customer will never be asked for C.O.D.)
• Provide a view into all order detail within a new “International Tab” in your Website Forge Account Management Portal (i.e. returns, billing inquiries, tracking information)
• Send international order and shipment confirmation emails, providing international customers with complete tracking information 
   

Once you sign up for FiftyOne, your website will automatically become multi-currency and be welcoming to an international customer.

You will not be required to make any changes to your existing business, financial, operational or fulfillment processes.

All international orders will be provided to you as U.S. orders with a U.S. credit card and a New Jersey shipping address that you will fulfill to and bill to as you normally would.

I think this service will drive more revenue for those who subscribe to it. 

Website Forge Merchant Partners who would like to enhance their websites for international visitors with a risk-free fulfillment process will be able to sign up for the service for a low monthly subscription fee of $14.95 plus a reasonable commission on sales.

At a time when the volume of international orders are growing due to the sagging USD$, having an improved international ecommerce and logistics service in time for Holiday 2008 will be a great advantage.  And saving time and money because you no longer need to handle customs paperwork is an asset. 

Let me know if you feel you would benefit from using FiftyOne and you intend to enroll when it becomes operational later this year.

Shane Merem

www.websiteforge.com

Web site design and e-commerce