InternationalshippingforShopifyandWooCommerce:apracticalguide

International shipping for Shopify and WooCommerce comes down to four decisions: which carrier covers each destination, what customs data travels with each parcel, who pays the import duties, and how a customer abroad sends a parcel back. None of them needs a freight forwarder. They need carrier agreements that cover your lanes, complete product data and shipping rules that give the same answer every time. This guide works through each decision for a webshop shipping from the EU, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway or Canada, and shows where Zippendo takes the manual work out of it.

What changes when your webshop ships abroad?

Three things change when an order leaves your own country: the carrier network, the paperwork and the cost to your customer. At home, one domestic carrier usually reaches every address. Across borders, coverage splits: one carrier is strong on road delivery inside Europe, another flies parcels to the United States, a third runs the parcel lockers your Polish customers use.

The paperwork depends on whether a parcel crosses a customs border, not a national one. Germany to France stays inside the EU customs union and needs no customs data. Germany to Switzerland, Norway or the United Kingdom does, and so do less obvious lanes such as the EU to Jersey or Guernsey, Great Britain to Ireland, or out of the Canary Islands.

The cost to your customer changes too. Import VAT and duties have to be paid by someone, and a customer asked for an unexpected fee at the door may refuse the parcel.

Which carrier should you use for each international lane?

Use a road parcel network for destinations inside Europe, an express carrier for destinations outside it, and a local carrier wherever customers expect a delivery type only the local network offers. In practice that means two or three carriers side by side.

Road parcel networks inside Europe

Road networks are the usual choice for everyday orders to other European countries. GLS Germany and the other GLS countries send GLS EuroBusinessParcel to every EU country GLS serves by road, and GLS does the same from Denmark. DHL eCommerce Europe delivers DHL Parcel Connect to homes across the EU, Norway, Ireland and the United Kingdom. DPD covers Europe through its national companies, such as DPD Polska, and UPS Standard is UPS's road service between European countries.

Express carriers for the rest of the world

Express carriers handle customs as part of the booking. DHL Express delivers to more than 220 countries, with DHL Express Worldwide for everyday international parcels and DHL Express 9:00 and 12:00 when a parcel must arrive by a set time. FedEx offers International Priority and International Economy worldwide, and UPS offers Worldwide Express, Worldwide Saver and Worldwide Expedited. Express costs more per parcel, so a common split is express outside Europe and for high-value orders, road for the rest.

Postal and local carriers

Postal carriers suit small, light parcels going a long way. Royal Mail takes parcels from Great Britain to the rest of the world with International Tracked and International Signed, DHL Parcel Connect Light carries small parcels from 5 g to 2 kg worldwide, and PostNL ships from the Netherlands to the rest of the world with Parcel Non EU. Local carriers matter at the receiving end: InPost delivers to InPost Paczkomat parcel lockers in Poland, and Bring takes parcels from Denmark, Sweden or Norway to pickup points across the Nordics.

A starting point by where you ship from

• From the EU: a road network such as GLS, DPD or DHL eCommerce Europe for Europe, plus one express account for the rest of the world.
• From the United Kingdom: Royal Mail for domestic and lighter international parcels, plus an express carrier for Europe and beyond.
• From Switzerland: DPD Switzerland ships to most of Europe, including the United Kingdom and Norway, with customs data on every export.
• From Canada: GLS Canada for ground parcels and next-business-day GLS Express within Canada, plus an express carrier such as DHL Express, FedEx or UPS for orders that leave the country.

What customs data does a non-EU shipment need?

Every item in a parcel that crosses a customs border needs five pieces of data: a plain description, the quantity, the value per unit with its currency, the country of origin and the HS code, also called the tariff number. Customs uses it to decide what duty and import VAT the receiver owes.

• Description: what the item is, in plain words. "Cotton T-shirt" works; "Summer drop 4" does not.
• Quantity and unit value: what the customer paid per item, in one currency for the whole parcel.
• Country of origin: where the item was made, not where you ship it from: a jacket made in Portugal and shipped from Denmark has Portugal as its origin.
• HS code: the Harmonized System code for the type of product. The first six digits are the same worldwide; the EU, the United Kingdom and other countries add digits of their own, so carriers often ask for 8 or 10.
• Your customs numbers: an EORI number to move goods in or out of the EU or the United Kingdom, an IOSS number if you collect EU import VAT at checkout on parcels worth up to EUR 150, and a VOEC number if you are registered in Norway's VAT on E-commerce scheme.

In Zippendo the customs fields sit on each order line of a parcel, and Zippendo checks them before the shipment goes to the carrier. A missing description, quantity or value shows up before the label is booked, not when the parcel is held at the border. If you sell on Shopify, Zippendo reads the HS code and country of origin from the product details you keep in Shopify, so fill them in there once. Your EORI, IOSS and VOEC numbers are entered once in your organization settings, or per brand, and Zippendo adds them to your international shipments.

Who produces the customs documents?

The carrier produces the customs declaration as part of the booking. DHL Express, FedEx and UPS create the customs documents and commercial invoice from the data Zippendo sends, and Royal Mail prints the customs form with the label. A shipping rule can also have Zippendo add a packing slip and, for carriers that don't make their own, a commercial or proforma invoice, printed next to the label. The customs and documents guide covers every field.

DAP or DDP: who pays the import duties?

With DAP (Delivered at Place) your customer pays any import duties, import VAT and clearance fees when the parcel arrives; with DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) you pay them, and your customer receives the parcel with nothing more to pay. Both are Incoterms, the trade terms published by the International Chamber of Commerce.

DAP is simpler to run, but it moves a cost and a wait onto your customer at the door. DDP gives a foreign customer the same experience as a domestic one, but you carry the duty bill and need to build it into your prices. A low-value parcel into the EU, where you collected the VAT at checkout under IOSS, arrives with its VAT settled; a higher-value order to Switzerland or the United States can carry duties your customer did not expect.

In Zippendo every shipment has delivery terms, DAP unless you choose another Incoterm such as DDP. What happens next depends on the carrier product:

• DHL Express: choose DDP as the term of trade and DHL bills the receiver's duties and taxes to you.
• UPS: UPS Worldwide Economy comes as a DDU product, with duties paid by the receiver, and a DDP product, with duties paid by you, so a shipping rule can pick either one.
• GLS from Germany, Austria, Belgium and Ireland: parcels outside the EU go to GLS as DDP when the shipment's delivery terms are DDP, and as DAP otherwise.
• DHL eCommerce Europe: DHL Parcel Connect and Connect PLUS follow the shipment's DDP or DAP terms; Connect Light always goes DAP.
• InPost: customs parcels go with duties unpaid, so keep those shipments on DAP.

How do returns from abroad work?

A return from abroad is an outbound shipment in reverse: you need a carrier product that collects in your customer's country and delivers to your address, and if the return crosses a customs border it needs the same customs data as the original parcel. Settle it before you sell into a country: the carrier that delivers there does not always collect returns there.

Carriers handle cross-border returns in different ways:

• GLS Shop Returns (GLS Germany, Austria, Belgium, France and Ireland): your customer hands the parcel in at a GLS ParcelShop in their own country, from any EU country GLS serves by road except Cyprus and Malta, with a printed label or, in most countries, a QR code.
• DHL Express: return variants of most products, billed to your DHL import account if you have one, with a returns invoice when the return crosses a customs border.
• InPost Return: customers in France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands or Luxembourg drop the parcel at an InPost locker or service point, and it comes back to your address in Poland.
• UPS and FedEx: return labels on the services that support returns; UPS can also email the label to your customer.

In Zippendo you create a return rule once, with a return product, and link it to the outbound rule for that destination. Zippendo then creates the return label with every shipment, or with one click on a sent shipment, and the return sits next to the original order. Zippendo does not run a return portal, so you send your customer the label or QR code, or the carrier does where its return product includes that.

How does Zippendo handle international shipping per destination?

Zippendo handles international shipping with shipping rules per destination: each rule names the receiving countries, the carrier, the carrier product and its services, and Zippendo applies it to every order that matches. You connect your own carrier agreements, so you keep your negotiated prices and each carrier invoices you directly.

A typical EU webshop has four rules:

1. Your home country, with your domestic carrier and its service point product.
2. The rest of the EU, with a road product such as GLS EuroBusinessParcel or DHL Parcel Connect.
3. Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom, with a product that carries customs data.
4. The rest of the world, with DHL Express Worldwide, FedEx International Economy or UPS Worldwide Saver.

Rules can also look at weight and order value, for example to send high-value orders by express. Quick-add buttons fill in whole regions (EU, Nordics, Europe, North America or World), and Zippendo marks any country the chosen product cannot deliver to, so a gap shows up while you build the rule rather than on the first order.

At checkout, live shipping rates in Shopify and the Zippendo plugin for WooCommerce show prices from the same rules, including the nearest service points, and on Shopify each rule can carry its checkout name in your customers' languages. When the order arrives, the label is booked with the right carrier and prints on Zippendo Printer. The tracking number goes back to Shopify, which sends your customer its shipping email, and tracking events from every carrier land in one timeline per shipment.

Before your first international shipment: a checklist

Work through these steps before the first foreign order ships:

1. List the countries you will sell to and mark the ones that sit outside your customs union.
2. Ask each carrier which lanes, products, weight limits and customs services your contract includes.
3. Get an EORI number, and decide whether IOSS for the EU or VOEC for Norway fits your order values.
4. Add an HS code and country of origin to every product, and write customs descriptions in plain words.
5. Decide DAP or DDP per destination, and say on your checkout and delivery pages who pays import charges.
6. Pick a return product for each country, and decide who pays for returns.
7. Build one shipping rule per region, try it with sample carts in the rule's condition tester, and check that no country is marked as unsupported by the product.
8. Send a test shipment in the carrier's test mode where it offers one, and check the label and documents before real parcels go out.

Start shipping abroad with the carriers you already use

Connect your carrier agreements, build one rule per region and let Zippendo book, print and track every international order. Browse all carrier integrations to find the carriers for your next lane, or compare plans on the pricing page, where the Free plan includes 100 shipments a month.