Hi Jade, thank you for your comment. You are absolutely right….offering free shipping from Belize, or offering free returns back to Belize, would be quite expensive for you. In fact, unless your margins are quite high, it is likely not viable for your business.

One thing to consider is the uniqueness of your products. For example, if your products are ones that cannot be easily found on Amazon, eBay or other websites, then you can likely get away with charging more for shipping and returns. So, essentially, the less competition you have, the more you can typically get away with relative to shipping/returns fees for people that want your products.

The other thing to consider is outsourcing order fulfillment. Doing so allows you to store your goods locally near your customers, which means shipping will be less expensive for you and your customers. If you are just starting out and order volume is relatively low right now, it may be a good idea to look at outsourcing once orders have picked up a bit and once your sales history has also been built up, which means you’ll have more insight into where most of your customers are located, and where you should initially look for a fulfillment partner.

Hope this helps!

I am working on a site to sell Belizean products to the world. Free return shipping sounds smart but expensive. Free shipping itself is expensive. I dont know what to do. I live in Belize.