Does Domain Extension Matter When Sending Links to International Customers?

[Cat]

I often get questions from customers who either need a custom design, or need me to point them to a product or collection. I generally just send them the link on the .com website without giving it a second thought. But recently I was doing work for a customer in the UK and I wondered if I should be changing the domain extension to .co.uk instead. Same thing for customers in Australia, Canada, or elsewhere.

Does the domain extension impact where the items will be printed and shipped from? Am I causing some sort of other headaches for these customers by not providing the proper domain extension? Just wondering what the best practice is for this, and if I need to inquire about which country the customer is in before sending a link.

[PacifierCity]

It would also be interesting to know how /if the link extension affects those in the promoter program 2.0...

PC

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[Laura-LiseWong · Accepted solution]

Yes it does. If they order from the .com site and not the domain of their country they also have the possibility of having insane custom fees when that order comes in. Always change the domain. Changing the domain won't affect your referral either.

[Cat]

Yikes! I guess I assumed that the website would be smart enough to figure out that they were in xyz country and ship the item from there, but apparently that's not the case. Thanks for the info!

[Laura-LiseWong]

Ya unfortunately not. As a Canadian I made the mistake of ordering from the .com Zazzle site once. The customs fees were almost the same amount as the item I ordered. I learned after that to use the .ca so that never happened again.

[Cat]

Eee Gads! Now I feel horrible for all the times I've sent international customers .com links! At least I know better now!

[WHS_Designs]

well, that clears up a long-held misconception for me ... I always thought the domain had to be changed to the customer's default to preserve the referral!

W.H.

[ColsCreations]

@Fiorenzohas written about this issue on several occasions and if I recall correctly, you are correct, the referral ID doesn't carry over if the customer changes domains. If your link is to DomainA and the customer switches to DomainB, the referral is lost.

[Fiorenzo]

Yup, correct, if nothing has changed in the meantime. I already replied plus I'll write a dedicated post in the tips and tricks section.

[Laura-LiseWong]

I should have worded that better. What I meant was even if I’m sending my clients the link to the item but it’s not from the .com site (it’s from their countries domain) I have no issues with getting my referral for that sale. 

[Fiorenzo]

I did understand you correctly, no worries. Yes, referrals and promoter links works correctly when the customers are sent to the related domain, you just have to avoid that customers change from within Zazzle. Made this mistake once and lost a big chunk after having spent 2 hrs or so in customer babysitting. And I'm not the one who then begs the customer to cancel the order, delete all cookies and redo the whole story.

[Connie]

Oh wow, I didn't know this! How do you know what extension to use? I don't know the abbreviations for all the countries.

[Laura-LiseWong]

Usually the customer will send a link to the product they are interested in and it 9/10 is from their domain. If I don't know for sure I just google it.

[Cat]

Now I REALLY wish Zazzle would fix the issue with links not being included in messages. I think I'll just make a practice of asking them before I send a link.

[PacifierCity]

My first reply to customers is usually something like,

Hi So and so,

I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason the link to the product you are interested in did not come through on my end.  Can you copy paste the link into the message box and send it over?

Signature.........

PC

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[Fiorenzo]

ONLY use the international domains specified in Zazzle's list. For EU customers not specifically listed, choose the EU link (it's the UK link but in €), and for all other customers with no specific local domain use the .com site which is also the worldwide one.

[idraw]

Here ya go--

the customer chooses their country from the dropdown list bottom of Zazzle page which then changes to that domain--
USA EN
Belgique FRl NL
Brazil
Canada EN FR
Deutschland
Espana
France
Nederland
new Zeeland
ossterreich
Portugal
Schweiz DE FR
Sveerige
United Kingdom
Rest of Europe
Japan

and here is a list of the abbreviations for most countries.
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/image?imageKey=DRUG%2F116421

@Catreally great question!

[Fiorenzo]

ONLY use the international domains specified in Zazzle's list. For EU customers not specifically listed, choose the EU link (it's the UK link but in €), and for all other customers with no specific local domain use the .com site which is also the worldwide one.

(copy & pasted duplicate)

[Fiorenzo]

International domains matter in terms of shipping and customs fees for the customer AND your affiliate share, including those who are in the promoter program. I will open a new dedicated post in the tips and tricks forum, but in short:

• customers pay usually more for the products on international domains
• the sales usually differ from the .com site and are usually less convenient
• the customer pays usually fewer shipping fees (international shipping from .com is expensive)
• there are usually no customs hassles and fees, which are handled by Zazzle, and in the case, something goes wrong, Zazzle support takes care of it
• If nothing has changed in the meantime, your referral does NOT transfer across domains (e.g. from the .com site to international domains) if the customer changes domain/language through Zazzle's internal links (dropdown in the header (world sphere icon - not all do have it) or on the bottom of the page, through flags) bottom. The same applies to clean promoter program links.
• The URL of your product page is exactly the same on all domains, ONLY the domain extension changes (e.g. .com, .de, .fr, etc) 

Providing links to the correct domain makes sure, your customers have fewer hassles and you get your promo/affiliate share. Note: if there are heavy discounts/sales on the .com site you may want to let the customer choose from what domain they want to buy. 

[Harmony]

I am in Canada and a lot of products are only available on the USA site. That being said I have found that Z has at times charged almost twice the price of the USA product on the Canadian site where this does not match the exchange rate

All the products are printed from the same place regardless of the domain you order from, but I have had customer support tell me that paying for expedited shipping with a stated shipping time is not something they have to honor. There also seems to be profit made from the shipping charges as well. 

[Fiorenzo]

Prices are higher on international sites cuz the products are, indeed, shipped from the States, and the prices contain customs fees and country-specific sales taxes/VAT. That's why you don't have to hassle with them on your end, it's all already handled & paid by Zazzle according to the agreements they have with the respective customs. There may be different reasons why some products are not available on local domains, one of the reasons is that some products cannot be included in the resp. import/export agreements. This was also mentioned by Z time ago in the old forum.

[NigelSutherland]

Surely it's not beyond the wit of Zazzle to automatically switch to the local domain. Many websites recognise where a visitor is from. The Zazzle engineers should enable this and also set up a mechanism whereby the associate's referral reference is carried over too. That would be of help to everyone.

[Fiorenzo]

A big fat NO to automatic recognition of your browser's country settings. I HATE this. Especially the websites which think they are clever by forcing you to browse on their local site and with local currency. It's bad enough as a visitor of such sites, imagine a designer living outside of the US and not being able to switch currency or to different local domains. Same with google.com where you need a trick to switch to US settings. No, no, and no. The COM site shall remain a US site. But yes, the referral link should work cross-domain, technically it's a no-brainer.

[NigelSutherland]

Perhaps give the option to switch, as some sites do. That would help customers who may be unaware that there is a more local site. Completely agree with your cross-domain comment. There we're singing from the same hymn sheet! 👍

[Fiorenzo]

I like the approach of the sites which on the international com page open a popup and ask if you want to continue on the English/US com site or switch to your local domain. This is one of the very few times I like to see windows popping up when entering a website. The automatic redirect to a local domain combined with an in-site option/link to switch to your preferred country & language is viable but less customer-friendly, and some won't notice it.

There is one more problem we would have to face on Zazzle: the affiliation links leading to a specific domain and to specific products. I wannot my international customers be redirected automatically on Zazzle's site, and I wannot my international customers head to a product-not-found page on a local domain cuz that product isn't available there. I'll handle the whole local domain stuff on my own website where my customers can decide by their own where they want to land.