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Dear Dr. Ecommerce,

We provide a store builder and shopping cart solution based in the United States. I am looking into providing an international solution that we can sell abroad. We want to allow anyone in any country to be able to buy from a store that is based anywhere in the world. I am most concerned with methods of payment and how we can accomplish this between different countries, given the cultural differences and preferred methods of payment (some prefer credit cards, some, debit cards, some cash only, etc.) Of course, there are numerous issues regarding tax and shipping that must be addressed. Can you recommend some sites or sources of understanding and resolving this enormous task??

Thank you,

Mary

Dear Mary:

Credit cards are widely used for e-commerce even in Europe, but you are right to look into alternative payment methods such as debit cards. You may also want to look at mobile telephones as a payment system. With mobile Internet all the rage here, it is now possible to pay with a phone call (and the purchase is added to the phone bill). This solution is likely to become increasingly popular.

An international bank would be a good place to start your research on payment. Two which I can suggest off-hand (not recommend, mind you, only suggest as I know they are global and offer e-commerce solutions, but I have no experience with them) are Deutsche Bank , which I believe is represented in America, and Citibank which, being a US bank, is certainly represented in America.

I suggest you also join the NowEurope discussion list which is an online forum devoted to Internet and e-commerce in Europe. You'll learn a lot about e-business in Europe and make good contacts as well.

The best place to get practical information on shipping, customs duties and other taxes are the courier companies - contact whichever one you are now using.

In addition, The Customs and Tax Union Directorate General of the European Commission has a lot of information on European tax law .

Our own e-Revolution web site has legal information. You could also look at the ECLIP project web site which has a number of documents on legal aspects of e-commerce.

It would probably be worth looking at lots of European eShops to see how they are set up and what tools they use.

Good luck,

Dr. Ecommerce