Syrup sales overseas?

[maple flats]

While I have had my syrup go to several different countries, none have been shipped direct in the last few years (most flew with the purchaser). With the current "heightened security" atmosphere, how do you ship overseas? At some point after the 2014 season I think I'd like to go international, (maybe). In another thread I've told about my unbelievable response to an online forum 2 line "for sale" adv. I placed, which at this time states, "US sales only". If I can get set up to handle each sale faster, I might remove the "US only" limitation in that adv. I need to know how to handle an international sale. While I'm not currently set up to accept Paypal, I was thinking that might be the best route, if they do international. I now accept payment by check and ship as soon as they tell me the check has been mailed for sales to that forum members only. This has not failed YET. However, I doubt I'd do this for international sales. I now ship FedEx exclusively, but I wonder if UPS might be better for international. I also think I'll need to change my pricing, one for local pick up and a second for shipped syrup, above and beyond the S&H charges.
Then if I start to sell out, I'll just buy more in bulk and keep going.
Any help or ideas appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave

[SeanD]

I would start with UPS and FedEx and see what they can do. They may have a flat rate option so you won't need to price out each country. Then look into setting up a credit card or PayPal account. You are right, the days of personal checks, except for reliable customers, are gone.

When you sign up to start using them, you can download their shopping cart codes so you can add purchase and shopping cart pages to your website (which looks really good, btw). On those pages, you can set your prices, discounts, sales, shipping, etc. and most are WYSIWYG. I didn't think of it at the time, but UPS and FedEx might offer something. If they don't, they are dumb not to.

I'm not there yet, but I started looking into it this past summer. The part you'll need to spend time looking for is a good deal. Some of the companies have really high rates. I can't remember how PayPal is. Square has really good credit card fees, but they don't have a website/shopping cart option, yet. If you can figure out how to do that yourself and use them, I'd recommend them.

Sean