Global Shipping Program makes it easy for sellers to achieve international success

The Global Shipping Program is currently in pilot and will be available to more sellers in 2013. It's smart, it's fast, and it's designed to help you sell to the world without the hassle of International shipping! Read how two sellers currently testing the program are seeing a huge jump in sales.

Reaching millions of international buyers just got easier

The Global Shipping Program (GSP) is a brand-new way for sellers to go international, without the usual hassles associated with cross border trade. The program lets you sell your items internationally, yet ship domestically to a U.S. shipping center that then gets your item where it needs to go. Once your item arrives, the shipping center handles everything—custom forms, collecting and remitting import charges paid by your buyer, and quickly ships your item internationally with end-to-end tracking. So shipping is streamlined, buyer questions are minimized, and customers are happy.

Currently in pilot testing with a handful of sellers, GSP will be more broadly available in 2013. We recently talked with two sellers who've been testing the program—Jason Birchmeier, operations manager of a multichannel ecommerce retailer of musical instruments, and Alan Cohen, president of an electronics and accessories shop. Despite having completely different businesses—and very different experiences—one thing was clear: the Global Shipping Program can mean massive growth.

Results were immediate

Alan Cohen, president at eComElectronics (user ID: ecomelectronics), has been getting results from the start. His business—which originally began as a personal account—has blossomed into a thriving electronics and accessories business with about 120,000 SKUs currently on the site. He says, before participating in the GSP pilot, "We were listing with international shipping, but shipping was difficult. We were shipping to everyone in different countries. They all had different packaging requirements, limitations, and policies, and we had to handle duties and taxes. There were a lot of headaches." Based on these experiences, they were very excited to hear about the new Global Shipping Program. "The first weekend we used GSP, we received 130-140 orders—strictly from this international program—within 24 hours!"

"The great thing about it too," Cohen adds, "is we're shipping it to a fulfillment center here in the U.S., so we don't have to worry about the duties or international taxes or anything like that. It's been smooth sailing."

Jason Birchmeier, operations manager at Austin Bazaar (user ID: austin_bazaar), a multichannel ecommerce retailer of musical instruments, shares a similar story. They've been selling on eBay for about a year now, and since then the business has grown steadily. "We've seen a huge jump in sales as we've expanded to an international market." Their results have been phenomenal with GSP, transforming their business. In fact, export sales for Austin Bazaar increased by more than tenfold in the weeks since enrolling in the program—going from thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars!

"Shipping costs through GSP are unbeatable," adds Birchmeier. "That's one beauty of GSP, the economies of scale. The shipping costs and the import charges our customers pay are very reasonable. If we were to ship internationally on our own, our rates would be double, if not triple."

Tap into new global opportunities

In numerous international markets, ecommerce runs at a different pace than here in America. GSP helps sellers like Austin Bazaar work toward their vision of extending their reach internationally to millions of new buyers. "We always wanted to go international, but we couldn't do it on a large scale because of the paperwork, and because the shipping costs were prohibitive. We were never sure if we were going to clear customs... We were shipping hundreds, if not thousands of orders a day. We don't have time to look up harmonized codes, call customs, and make sure our packages go through," says Birchmeier. GSP has alleviated those concerns and unknowns.

The future

There's no magic formula for success, but if there's one common thing the pilot sellers we spoke with can agree on, it's that global commerce represents a huge opportunity, and GSP is definitely going to be a part of their plans for the next year or two.

Cohen says, "eComElectronics is looking to increase our SKU count on eBay by 100% this year, and that's mainly because of the success of this program. eBay is looking to expand the program to more international destinations—it's definitely something we're looking forward to."

"Yeah, we're really committed to this," says Birchmeier. "This was our vision long ago. We saw Austin Bazaar as an international seller. GSP has really opened up doors for us and enabled us to realize that vision. In addition to breaking down barriers and finding new markets, we want to develop our own products, create our own brands, and grow the business in that way also."