International shipping is costly in terms of time and money, so you have to decide whether the extra paperwork and cost of shipping internationally is worth the hassle for the price of the merchandise you are selling. If you do go for it, be sure to be well educated on the cost including the time involved for the extra customs paperwork that may be required. If you can set up and buy your shipping online, that is very helpful -- UPS, USPS, and FedEx all try to make online shipping as easy as possible, even for international shipments.
If you ship parcel post or first class, the up-front cost is lower, but ship time can be long and (more importantly) you have no tracking information for such shipments. For USPS priority mail or other shippers, you get tracking information within the US borders and sometimes even full tracking to the point of delivery depending on the country. This can be a life saver if the customer claims to not have gotten a package, because you can at least prove you shipped it and acted in good faith.
I speak from painful experience when I advise to NOT ever, ever use UPS or FedEx to ship internationally if you are the one paying UPS or FedEx directly for the service. You will pay the shipping costs, which are spendy enough, but later on you'll be hit with "brokerage" fees, which can far exceed the cost of the shipping AND the merchandise. USPS is really the only way to go, unless you have a very high-value order or if you have a customer who will provide his/her UPS or FedEx account number, which means the customer will pay all fees.
And then don't forget the customs delays, which will slow delivery by a few days to a few weeks, again depending on the country. Canada, UK, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and New Zealand are usually pretty good, but in my experience France can be slooooowwww. And build in another few extra days if you ship close to the Christmas holidays.
Some shippers will give into customers' pleas to mark on the customs forms that the contents of a shipment are a "gift" or "samples". This is done so the customer can avoid custom's fees. I will not do that. Ever. If customs chooses to argue the point, any repercussions and fines will assessed against me, not the customer, so I have everything to lose and nothing to gain by this. I'd rather lose the sale, quite frankly, than risk that kind of hassle.
It is certainly do-able to ship internationally, but do your homework on the rules and procedures, price your shipping fees to truly cover the costs, and learn how to complete the customs paperwork before you hit a crunch time.
