This is something that never fails to make me want to grind my teeth.
An online site will hove into view.
I'll see that it has items which I need to buy.
I look through the site (often in a foreign language), trying to see whether or not they have delivery to Australia. Mostly there will not be any indication - at least not anything that's in plain view or easy to find.
I'll register.
I'll spend a happy hour or so putting things into my shopping basket.
I'll try to complete the purchase, but at the checkout, I am stymied. "We only ship within China/Thailand/German/Croatia/Poland/India/Japan/blahblahblah".
So I ask this, just as a metaphorical question:
1. Why? Why won't they ship outside their country? WHY?
2. And if they won't ship outside their country, why don't they SAY SO on the first page or in an easy-to-find FAQ page or shipping information page? Why only tell me when I'm trying to pay for my order?
3. And why won't they answer emails or pick up the phone, especially when I've memorised the phrase, "Good day, I would like to order from you; will you agree to post to Australia if I pay an additional fee for DHL or similar?" in Croatian?
I don't really need an answer to any of these. I know that the answers are probably as follows:
1. Because they could not be bothered/don't want to/don't wish to risk international delivery/think it creates too many problems if there's the issue of damaged goods and returns.
2. Because they wanted to put all the positive information onto their website, rather than anything offputting or irrelevant to the business of selling to people in their own country/couldn't be bothered/didn't tell their web designer they wanted to let foreigners know it was NO GO.
3. Because they know it's me calling... and they suspect I'm going to try to wheedle them.
