Shipping Product Exchanges to International Customers

[delcorsets]

Does anyone know the best way to ship exchanged products back to an international customer so that they are not paying duties/taxes twice on the same order?

In this case we are US based and we are shipping size exchanges to a customer in Canada. The customer already paid duties on the original shipment but has returned the goods for size exchanges. Is there a way to send back the correct sizes without them having to pay the taxes again?

Are some carriers better for this than others? FedEx Ground to Canada has the lowest shipping cost for this particular shipment, but we could look into other carriers if that makes a difference in whether or not we can send the replacements without having the customer being double charged for duties.

I'm curious to hear how other merchants are handling international exchanges.

[Rick Wilson]

Thanks for writing in to the forum with your questions about duties/taxes. We weren’t sure of the answer ourselves, so we reached out to our partners at Zonos, and they have responded with the below guidance:

Duties and taxes will be due on the replacement order. It may be possible to obtain a refund through the carrier as a duty or tax dispute request. Full documentation of the original shipment, the return and then the replacement shipment would be needed to prove the return. This would all be handled through the carrier.

This can vary by country but here are some examples of potential refund scenarios:
A return to the U.S. - The U.S. entry fee is free unless the item is over $800 USD, at which point duty may apply.
A return to the E.U. - No duty unless the item is over €150 (FYI, the EU will not return VAT on non EU shipments).
A return to G.B. - G.B. will only allow for a partial refund through "Returned Goods Relief".

So from what they are saying, it seems likely that you would need to work with your specific carrier(s) to advise an end customer of their options.

Always great to see you posting on the forums. Also, I did want to make sure you knew that Miva has a dedicated Customer Success team, available to answer questions like this. Feel free to reach out at [email protected]