Selling internationally fails for boring reasons: surprise duties at the door, missing commercial invoices, and transit times nobody quoted correctly. Fulfillment EZ ships worldwide with automated customs paperwork, DDP or DDU terms, and duty-optimized routing so cross-border orders arrive predictably instead of getting stuck in a clearance queue.
- DDP and DDU worldwide delivery options
- Automated commercial invoices and HS code mapping
- DHL, UPS, FedEx and postal consolidator options per lane
- Landed-cost visibility before the order ships
DDP vs DDU and why it decides your refund rate
Under DDU (delivered duty unpaid) the customer pays duties and taxes on arrival. It is cheaper on the label and expensive everywhere else: refused parcels, chargebacks, and one-star reviews written at a customs counter.
Under DDP (delivered duty paid) duties and taxes are calculated and collected at checkout, then remitted on the customer's behalf. The parcel clears cleanly and the customer experience matches domestic delivery. We support both and will model the cost difference on your actual destination mix before you choose.
Customs documentation that clears the first time
Each SKU is mapped to an HS tariff code, country of origin and declared value during onboarding. From there, commercial invoices, packing lists and electronic advance data are generated automatically at label print, so nothing depends on a person remembering a form.
Restricted-category products — supplements, cosmetics, batteries, and food items — get destination-specific rule checks so an order is stopped before shipping rather than seized after.
- HS code and country-of-origin mapping per SKU
- Automated commercial invoice and packing list generation
- Electronic advance data submitted to destination customs
- Restricted and prohibited item checks by destination country
Choosing the right international lane
Express integrators such as DHL and FedEx deliver in two to five days and clear customs aggressively. Postal consolidation costs far less on low-value parcels but takes seven to eighteen days depending on the market. Most brands should use both, split by order value.
We rate-shop each international parcel across the lanes enabled for your account and can enforce rules such as express only above a value threshold, or consolidation for lightweight sample orders.
Landed cost: what your customer actually pays
The price on your product page is rarely what an international customer pays. Landed cost is product value plus international freight plus duty plus destination VAT or GST plus any brokerage fee. In the EU that can add 20 to 27 percent, in Canada 5 to 15 percent depending on province, and in Brazil considerably more.
We calculate landed cost per destination from your HS codes and declared values so it can be surfaced at checkout instead of discovered on a doorstep. Brands that show the full number up front see fewer refused deliveries and materially fewer refund requests, even though the displayed total is higher.
Thresholds matter too. Many markets have de minimis values below which duty is waived, and order composition can be optimised against them — splitting a two-item order into two parcels sometimes costs less all-in than one dutiable shipment.
- Duty and VAT/GST estimates per destination and HS code
- De minimis threshold logic by market
- IOSS, UK VAT and Canadian GST/HST handling
- Brokerage and disbursement fees surfaced, not hidden
Canada, UK, EU and Australia — the four lanes that matter most
For most US ecommerce brands, four markets make up the overwhelming majority of international revenue. Canada is closest and cheapest but sensitive to brokerage fees on courier lanes, so postal and consolidator options often win on parcels under about 100 dollars. The UK requires VAT registration and collection at checkout for consignments under 135 pounds, which is straightforward once configured.
The EU runs on IOSS for consignments up to 150 euros, letting VAT be collected at checkout and remitted monthly under a single registration, with the number transmitted in the electronic customs data. Australia and New Zealand apply GST at low thresholds and have strict biosecurity rules on anything containing food, plant or animal-derived ingredients.
We configure each lane separately rather than applying one global rule, because a policy that is right for Toronto is usually wrong for Sydney.
International shipping for restricted categories
Supplements, skincare, electronics with batteries, aerosols and anything shelf-stable and edible each carry their own destination rules. Many failures are avoidable: a supplement blocked for an ingredient banned in the destination market, a battery shipped without the correct hazard mark, a serum over the volume limit for an air lane.
Every SKU is screened against destination-country rules at order release. If a combination is prohibited, the order stops before it is picked and appears in your dashboard with the reason, which is far cheaper than a seizure notice three weeks later.
Transit times, tracking and the post-purchase experience
International customers tolerate longer transit when they can see it. Every lane we enable produces end-to-end tracking events, including the destination-country handoff, which is where cheap consolidator services usually go dark and support tickets begin.
Tracking is written back to your store the moment the label prints, so your post-purchase emails, order status page and helpdesk all reference the same events we see. When a lane starts underperforming its quoted transit, it shows in the dashboard as a lane-level average and we move volume before your reviews notice.