Is international shipping keeping you up at night?

According to this year’s State of Shipping report, 82.8% of ANZ retailers said international shipping expansion was at least slightly important to them, with 17.2% saying it is very important. And with global ecommerce forecast to hit US$6.8T by 2028, the opportunity is bigger than the fear.

But many brands still treat cross-border shipping like a side project with no lane strategy, no landed-cost model, and no clear way to negotiate rates before they scale. Often, that’s what makes it costly, not the shipping itself.

For this edition of Delivered, Bian Robianesar, Shippit’s Senior Shipping Solutions Manager, who manages international shipping solutions across ANZ and Southeast Asia, provides insights to strip the emotion out of it and talk through a pragmatic playbook: how to enter your first market, protect margin, and avoid self‑inflicted delays.

Let’s get into it.

TL;DR

• Choose and test markets strategically: Not all markets are created equal. Prioritise countries with strong demand, cultural and language similarities, political stability, and lower trade friction. For many Australian retailers, New Zealand, the US, and UK remain top picks thanks to familiar buying behaviours, simpler localisation, and realistic fulfilment options.
• Get your customs documentation right: Incomplete paperwork is the biggest cause of international delivery delays. Ensure your commercial invoices are accurate, product descriptions are detailed, and Harmonised System (HS) codes are correct.
• Design sustainable returns policies: When return shipping costs exceed product value, think about implementing a hybrid refund model or in-country refunds rather than absorbing unsustainable reverse logistics costs.
• Seasonal revenue arbitrage: International expansion has tremendous benefits for seasonal products. Smart brands ship summer stock to Australia while simultaneously moving winter gear to North America (for example), doubling their selling season.

Choose and test markets strategically

If your international model can’t work in one country, it won’t work in five. The best logistics teams aren’t building global operations off hope and spreadsheets, they’re pressure testing every variable in a single lane before scaling.

→ One SKU range.

→ One carrier setup.

→ One delivery promise.

→ One forecast period.

New Zealand is often the first market for Australian-based retailers due to how close it is - three-to-five day transit, no major customs drama, culturally aligned, and just far enough to reveal the cracks.

Freedom Furniture proves this approach works. They used a multi-carrier strategy across both Australia and New Zealand to achieve 20% freight cost savings. By automating fulfilment across 50+ stores and 100+ dispatch points, they expanded their carrier options and removed previous shipping restrictions that were limiting their New Zealand operations.

The US and UK might seem attractive at first, but they’re some of the hardest markets to land cleanly, especially with the recent announcement of the U.S. de minimis removal for all goods, regardless of manufacturing origin. You're dealing with stricter customs documentation, unpredictable delivery timelines, and layers of compliance like Food and Drug Administration (FDA) checks, Value Added Tax (VAT) requirements, and Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) registration. It's not just complexity but the cost, time, and support tickets if you’re not set up properly from the start. But, when taking into account similarities in language and culture, as well as demand, it may still be a feasible option for certain industries.

The post-COVID years gave us enough failed playbooks to learn from. Retailers who went live in three to five markets at once got eaten alive by shifting carrier capacity, warehouse delays, and surprise surcharges they couldn’t re-route around. The ones who focused on one lane had the data to adapt, pause, or renegotiate before things spiralled.

👉 Data Point: The global cross-border ecommerce market is expected to reach $5.06 trillion by 2028.

👉 Strategic Implication: If you're not testing international lanes, you're falling behind the majority of your competitors.

You’re not just proving customer demand in a new market, you’re testing how your P&L holds up under real freight stress. That means tracking things like landed cost per SKU bundle, refund rates by shipping model, support load per 1,000 orders, and delay variance by postcode cluster. If that model can’t hit your margin floor in New Zealand, it’s not going to work in the US.

Stop customs delays from killing your delivery speed

For most retailers, customs feel like a black box. You send something out, and then suddenly... silence. Customers start asking, "Where's my order?" and all you can do is shrug.

“The basic information and documents that you need comes down to three things," Bian explains. "One is the commercial invoice, second is product description, and lastly the Harmonised System (HS) code. The most common cause of delays is when the commercial invoice is incomplete or inaccurate."

Each country has its own little quirks. You might be shipping smoothly to New Zealand and assume the UK will be the same. But then the UK asks for a VAT tax ID, and suddenly you're in customs limbo.

Here's what Bian recommends for realistic delivery windows: "For standard shipping to US and UK, expect up to 10 days. To Asia, for example Singapore or Hong Kong, expect around 4-6 days. And for New Zealand, expect 3-5 days."

For those who need an extra hand making sure their international setup runs smoothly, shipping platforms like Shippit partner with global ecommerce solutions like Global-e and Zonos to power a complete cross-border solution, from managing international payments, duty and tax calculations based on SKUs and lanes, and even checkout and product page localisation.

If you're scaling cross-border, get your customs game right and make sure your paperwork is not left as an afterthought.

Stop customs delays from killing your delivery speed

International returns don't have to be a margin killer if you approach them strategically. The key is understanding your return patterns and building a policy that protects both customer experience and profitability.

If you're selling a $45 pair of sandals and it costs $30 to bring them back to Australia (plus duties and reimport admin), you need to weigh the true cost of that "customer-first" approach against alternatives.

There are smarter ways to play it without making your customers foot the bill:

→ Hybrid refund model: Offer exchanges with prepaid shipping, but ask customers to cover return costs for cash refunds

→ In-country returns: Work with third-party processors in key markets to handle returns, refurbishment, resale locally

→ Disposal and liquidation: Consider if the item getting recycled, destroyed, or sold to a third-party in-country makes more economic sense than processing it as a return

When return volumes are consistently low and shipping costs exceed product value, some retailers do consider local disposal or liquidation as last resort options. But the goal should always be building a sustainable return process that works for both you and your customers.

Also, consider a refund tech platform to automate the process, rather than leaving it to manual emails and spreadsheets. Make your policy clear from the start, and focus on creating a returns experience that maintains customer trust while protecting your bottom line.

Seasonal brands need to think global to survive

If you're running a seasonal product line, and you're still local-only, you're likely spending months each year sitting on idle inventory and untapped demand. This is when shipping into markets that offset your slump becomes a smart play.

And the opportunity is real, as Pitney Bowes found in their 2024 survey of 13,000 adults across 13 countries found 86% of Australians had made at least one purchase from an international online store, which tells you the appetite for cross-border products works both ways.

But, it’s not as simple as duplicating your domestic playbook.

You need to time your logistics to match when they buy, not when you sell. You might be packing summer stock locally while your overseas customers are already hunting for winter holiday gifts. That means forecasting Lunar New Year delays in China when your Aussie warehouse is also preparing for back to school and Australia Day sales, which also means rethinking inventory allocation entirely.

→ Swimwear, snow gear, allergy meds are all examples of products that could be shipped to global markets to tap into reverse seasonal windows. If you’re tied to one hemisphere’s calendar, international expansion is survival math for you.

→ Map your seasonal calendar against target markets: if you're shipping summer swimwear, Northern Hemisphere customers start shopping in March-April, not when Australian summer begins.

The brands that survive seasonality long-term are the ones that treat demand curves like global tides. They push products into the right market at the right time, not by chance but by design. And they build capacity to test into new seasonal calendars, learn which SKUs translate across hemispheres, and pull back or double down accordingly.

It’s about going global, so your business doesn’t stand still for three to six months of the year.

Logistics and ops leaders: Your strategic action items

✅ Test one lane properly before scaling

Start with New Zealand. Prove your unit economics, customs process, and carrier relationships work in one market before expanding.

✅ Master your customs documentation

Invest in getting commercial invoices, product descriptions, and HS codes right from day one. Don’t let incomplete paperwork damage your customer experience before your international operations have a chance to scale.

✅ Know when to say no to returns

Calculate the true cost of reverse logistics vs. alternatives. Consider if you have to make the call to go for local disposal/liquidation in order to protect margins long-term.