So, you’re asking about “Joe’s International,” eh? Sounds grand, doesn’t it? Like I was running some big global empire from my garage. Well, let me tell you, the reality was a bit more… messy.
It all started simple enough. I had this idea, see? I was making these pretty decent handcrafted leather wallets. Friends liked ’em, family liked ’em. So, my brain goes, “Hey Joe, why not sell these things to people beyond our little town? Why not go… international?” Seemed like a brilliant plan at the time. The internet makes everything possible, right?
So, I got to work. First, I spent a weekend fiddling around, and bam, I had a basic little website. Put up some nice photos of the wallets, wrote up some descriptions. I was feeling pretty proud, I tell ya. I even set up a fancy email address with “international” in it. Thought I was a real tycoon in the making.
Then came the actual “international” part. Oh, man. That’s where things started to unravel. It wasn’t just about clicking “publish” on a website. Not by a long shot.
First thing that hit me was shipping. You think sending a small package is straightforward? Try sending it to another continent. Suddenly, the cost to ship one of my twenty-dollar wallets was, like, thirty bucks! And the forms! Customs declarations, HS codes, what the heck even are those? I swear, I spent more time figuring out paperwork than actually making the wallets.
Then there was getting paid. You’d think in this day and age, money would just zip around the globe. Nope.
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Exchange rates kept changing, eating into any tiny profit I might make.
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Then there were the payment gateways. Some wouldn’t work for customers in certain countries. Others charged an arm and a leg in fees.
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And don’t even get me started on trying to figure out international taxes. My head still hurts thinking about it.
And the language barrier! I thought, “English is pretty common, right?” Sure, but when someone from Japan is asking a super specific question about the type of thread I use, and Google Translate is spitting out gibberish for both of us, it’s just… frustrating. I tried my best, learned a few polite phrases in other languages, but it was tough.
I remember this one time, I got an order from somewhere in Eastern Europe. I was so excited! My first truly “international” sale that wasn’t to a cousin living abroad. I packed it up super carefully, triple-checked the address, filled out all the forms best I could. Weeks later, it came back. “Undeliverable.” No explanation, nothing. Just returned. I was out the shipping cost, and the customer was understandably annoyed. I felt like such a failure.
So, “Joe’s International” became less of a business and more of a very expensive, time-consuming hobby. It wasn’t this slick operation I’d imagined. It was just me, drowning in international postal regulations and currency conversion charts. All those articles you read about “easy global e-commerce”? Yeah, they leave out the gritty bits, the parts where you’re pulling your hair out because a package is stuck in customs for three weeks.
It’s like, everyone wants to sell you the dream of a global marketplace, but nobody tells you that you basically need to become a logistics expert, a currency trader, and a multilingual diplomat overnight, especially if you’re just a small fry. My little wallet operation just wasn’t built for that kind of complexity, not without a lot more resources, or maybe a lot more patience than I had.
So, what happened to “Joe’s International”? Well, the website’s still there, kinda gathering dust. I get an occasional query, but I mostly stick to selling locally now. Craft fairs, word of mouth. It’s smaller, sure. But way, way less stressful. Maybe one day I’ll try the “international” thing again. But for now, Joe’s pretty happy staying local. Much simpler that way.
