The task seemed simple enough: I needed this one product.
Step 1 was to take a look at the Finnish stores that might sell them. No luck there, although that wasn’t exactly a shocking surprise. If you want anything out of the ordinary over here, you better order it from somewhere else.
Step 2 was to go online. And voilà, up comes more than a dozen online shops (mostly in US) that sell the exact thing I’m looking for! At this point I thought the problem was solved: it typically isn’t hard to get something from place A to place B as there are plenty of companies providing such services and similar logistical problems have successfully been solved before – many times.
But nevertheless, I hit a snag: it seems that none of the companies ship abroad! I think WTF, how difficult is it to ship stuff abroad? Barnes & Noble, Amazon et al do it all the time! After finding out that 15 of the 16 American online stores I found are unable to ship to international locations I zero in on the one that says they can. But their process is archaic: I supposedly cannot use a credit card but need to have an international money order sent to them.
A money order? Who uses that stuff anymore? But I thought okay, fine, if they’re so backward, so be it. Plus they wanted the exact address to give a shipping quote before ordering. Fair enough. So I sent it to them to get a shipping quote and asked for information I needed to send in a money order. So what happens? Nothing, that’s what. I send a follow-up question – still nothing for days. So I’m thinking that to heck with these folks if that’s the level of their customer service.
So here I am, with over a dozen companies that would have what I need in the US or Canada – and they’re unable to ship it outside of US. That – does – not – make – sense! Is this the level of globalization we’ve “achieved” – we can see all the available stuff from all around the planet but we can’t actually get it because someone can’t figure out how to send a package to Europe? Of course, none of the customer service reps was able to tell exactly why they can’t ship outside the US. They just can’t.
After some more research, I find out that in Australia, this particular thing is sold under a different brand name. So I locate on Australian store online selling it, send them an e-mail about shipping to Finland and get a positive answer and a quote back in like an hour or so. I call in my credit card details and the thing is supposedly already on its way! The ordering process took less than 10 minutes of my time. Yeah! Now let’s see how long the postal service takes for it to get – literally – to the other side of the planet.
So after some hours of frustratration, the story supposedly has / will have a happy ending. But I was left somewhat disappointed by the process. Why does something this simple has to take so long? What is it with the US stores’ incapability of international business? When does globalization extend to individuals instead of just companies ordering stuff from China in bulk?
