Sell Abroad Guide

Cross-border compliance

Get Customs and VAT Right Before You Ship

Work through duties, import VAT and product compliance for each destination market so your landed cost and paperwork hold up at the border.

A small export packing bench with a cardboard carton, a printed commercial invoice, a customs declaration form, a barcode scanner and a roll of tape, lit by daylight from a nearby window.

What You Gain Before You Ship

Three practical payoffs of planning cross-border selling before the first order leaves the warehouse.

01

Know the landed cost before you quote

Build shipping, duty, and import VAT into your price instead of absorbing them after the sale. A landed-cost sheet per destination shows what a product actually costs to deliver, so a margin that looks healthy on the product page does not disappear at the border.

Read customs and duty guides
A desk with a laptop showing a spreadsheet of shipping and duty line items, a calculator, and a printed carrier rate sheet beside a small cardboard box.

02

Clear customs without stalled parcels

Missing HS codes, vague product descriptions, and incomplete commercial invoices are the usual reasons shipments sit in customs. A short checklist per product and per destination keeps paperwork consistent, so clearance becomes routine rather than a per-order scramble.

Read import compliance guides
Hands filling out a commercial invoice form on a clipboard next to a stack of shipping labels and a sealed parcel on a packing table.

03

Sell in the buyer's language, not a translation

Translation alone leaves sizing, payment habits, and return expectations mismatched. Localizing product pages, currency display, and checkout for one market at a time makes the store feel native, and it is easier to measure which market actually converts.

Read localization guides
Two tablet screens side by side on a table showing the same product page in different languages and currencies, with a notebook and coffee cup nearby.
A small parcel on a kitchen table with a customs declaration pouch and a printed duty notice beside it, daylight from a nearby window

Customs, duties and import compliance

Know what your buyer pays at the door

Duties, import VAT and carrier handling fees are usually collected from your customer on delivery, not at checkout, so the landed cost needs to be clear before they order.

  • Separate duty, import tax and the carrier's handling fee in your messaging
  • Show whether prices are charged duty-paid or duty-unpaid at checkout
  • Give the buyer the tariff code and declared value used on the label
  • Link to a short page explaining what happens if they refuse the parcel
Read the customs and duties articles

Get the landed cost right before you quote

Duty, import VAT and freight change the margin on every order, so price the full landed cost before the first quote goes out.

Close-up of a customs declaration form on a clipboard beside a magnifier and a product specification sheet on a wooden desk

Classify the product correctly

The HS code decides the duty rate and whether the goods need a licence. A wrong code can mean an underpaid duty bill months later, plus storage charges while customs holds the shipment. Start from the manufacturer's specification, not from a similar product you shipped before.

Customs, duties and import compliance
Shipping cartons and a freight invoice on a warehouse packing bench with a tape dispenser and scale

Separate duty, VAT and freight in your price

Import VAT is usually recoverable for a registered business; duty is not. Freight and insurance are part of the customs value in most destinations, so a cheap shipping quote still raises the duty you pay. Build each of the three into the price separately so a change in one does not hide inside the others.

VAT, tax and cross-border pricing
Two versions of a product package side by side on a table, one with unfamiliar label layout, next to a notebook of handwritten notes

Test market fit before you localize

Translation is the last step, not the first. Check whether the product name, size, ingredient rules or voltage standard suit the destination at all; a literal translation of a product that does not fit the market wastes the whole localization budget. Localize the listing once the product itself clears that check.

Localization, translation and market fit

Customs, Duties and Import Compliance

Landed cost is the number that decides the sale

Duty rates, import VAT and brokerage fees are set by the destination country, so price each market from the landed cost rather than from your domestic margin.

Read the customs and duties articles

Cross-border briefing

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