International Shipping Question

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SmallThings

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I've been getting so many requests from international buyers that I've decided to start offering international shipping as a standard option. This may be a crazy question, but are there any countries where it would be illegal to ship my soap to?
 
It would most likely matter what's in your soap. I know there are some countries that don't allow any herbs entered into their country, even if the herbs are in a product.
 
And I know, that in Europe, everything from outside EU will be stopped at customs,
and then we have to pay taxes etc on top of the price we have already paid for the goods.
We also have to pay tax of the shippingamount !
And, it can take a looooong time, before we hear anything from customs, sometimes months.
I bet you can risk, a lot of customers telling you, they didn't recieve the soap.
sorry, but this is something we are very angry about in Europe.
 
Genny said:
It would most likely matter what's in your soap. I know there are some countries that don't allow any herbs entered into their country, even if the herbs are in a product.

Australia is one of them.
 
Interesting about the herbs, I didn't think of that. So far, I don't have any soaps with herbs added, but good to keep in mind
 
I'm in Australia and I've sent to the US and the Netherlands without any problems..
Customs here is strict with what comes in..
 
Here is one thing you can do to find out.
Go to www.usps.com and "pretend" that you
are looking for an international rate for a
package. Choose the country and just put
any amount in for the weight ... then, when
it takes you to your rate page, at the top
of the page you will see a link that says
something about "see restrictions and
information for (the country)" ... click on
that and you can read all the details of
what you can send and can't send.

Remember that a soap is not only a soap
if it has any active ingredients in it ... it is
then considered to be a cosmetic. For instance,
the U.S. cannot ship cosmetics into some
countries, etc.

I hope this helps!

Kathy
 
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