Endicia launched a new service to help online merchants and other shippers reach customers in Latin America. Endicia Global Service provides quicker customs clearance and affordable rates for businesses shipping to Brazil, with more countries to follow.
Endicia Global Service is designed help small-to-midsize businesses speed up delivery – packages sent to Brazil from the U.S. can now clear customs in hours instead of days, typically arriving in the customers’ hands in 8-10 days – that’s compared to the typical 20 days.
Selling internationally presents unique challenges, one of which is the lack of package tracking sellers have grown to rely on with domestic shipments. Endicia Global Service offers end-to-end tracking, a huge plus with international shipments – as well as international address verification.
Another challenge are duties that shoppers must pay upon picking up packages sent from outside their country. Endicia Global Service allows businesses to deliver products duty-paid. The company explains, “This means that taxes are known at shipment creation and can be paid up-front rather than collected from the customer on delivery.”
That’s something eBay has moved toward with its Global Shipping Program (GSP) powered by Pitney Bowes. For that service, eBay sellers send packages to Pitney Bowes’ processing center in Kentucky, which takes care of the international leg of the journey.
For Endicia Global Service, sellers send their packages to its partner SkyPostal in Miami, which opens it, checks it, and gives it a domestic Correios (BrazilPost) shipping label.
There are other differences between Endicia’s service and eBay’s GSP. Endicia Global Service is platform-agnostic, meaning businesses can sell through any marketplace or their own website. In addition, Endicia shows merchants the shipping costs and duties and taxes and allows businesses to set the costs displayed to customers, so they can build in a small profit to shipping charges.
Another selling point Endicia promotes with its new service is that shippers no longer need to fill out customs forms and print duplicate labels. “They simply enter a product’s description and value, and Endicia’s software produces the proper label,” the company explains.
A beta release of Endicia Global Service is available for Brazil. General availability for Brazil is scheduled for this summer, with the service expanding to support additional countries in Latin America and the Caribbean Islands by the end of 2015.
Endicia is focusing on Brazil because it is the largest ecommerce market in Latin America – Brazil currently has a population of 202 million, of which 33.5 million shop online.
Endicia Global Service is available through the Endicia Professional service plan, and more information is available on the Endicia website.
