Canada Post Borderfree to extend cross-border e-commerce services
Canada Post Borderfree is expanding its horizons with plans to offer its cross-border payment and shipping services to 200 countries this year, Borderfree president and CEO Thomas Reeves tells InternetRetailer.com.
Canada Post Borderfree, a joint venture of Ottawa-based Canada Post Corp., Canada’s national postal service, and Borderfree Ltd,, a Toronto-based Internet technology company, launched cross-border services earlier this year for companies that sell online to Canadian consumers. Serving more than 20 online merchants, it automatically compiles all costs related to shipping and cross-border taxes and duties for individual products, then factors in the currency exchange rate, so that retailers can show their customers at the time of order the complete cost to receive a product delivered to their address. Borderfree uses foreign exchange management software and services from New York-based E4X Inc.
And by arranging to have consumers pay ahead of time for the full cost of shipping, orders can be delivered directly to their addresses without getting delayed at a cross-border facility. The system also avoids situations where shoppers, shocked at the full price they have to pay to pick up their orders, refuse to accept them, Reeves says. Canada Post Borderfree’s clients include the National Hockey League, Crate & Barrel, Brookstone, Ritz Cameras and eBags.com.
Now Canada Post Borderfree plans to expand its services globally through other national postal services. “We plan to serve 200 countries by the fourth quarter,” Reeves says.
At eBay Inc.’s eBay Live annual conference next week, Borderfree will launch cross-border services specifically for eBay buyers and sellers, Reeves says. By offering currency conversion and other services, he adds, he expects the service to ease some sellers’ unwillingness to sell to buyers in foreign countries.
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