Isolationist U.S. Companies [Rant]

This is the first in an occasional series of posts about companies who are isolationist, offer terrible customer service or annoy me in a different way.

First up is Newegg.com. As many of you know, prices of pretty much everything are lower in the US than in the UK. I needed another CompactFlash card for my camera, and someone pointed out that newegg.com are selling a Transcend 2GB 120x card for $38.99. I haven’t found anywhere in the UK near that price, so I visited newegg.com.

There’s nothing on the front page or at the top of other pages to say they only ship inside the US. Having been caught out before, I look at the “Frequently Asked Questions” and “Knowledge Base” at the bottom of the page, to try to determine where they ship to.

Nothing. That’s good, I must be in luck! A US company that recognises there is a world beyond its shores and the 52nd state of Iraq.

Happy, I browsed back through the site and added the CompactFlash card to my cart. And realised there was no way to select shipping to outside the USA.

Then I saw it, at the bottom of the cart:
IMPORTANT SHIPPING INFORMATION

Why not make it clearer on the site? Why require me to add it to my cart before finding out whether I can have it shipped to me? I fully understand companies who don’t ship outside their country (it’s so much easier to deal with the postal service - no customs declarations etc) but for goodness sake make it obvious from the start if someone arrives from a non-US IP address! It shows a distinct disregard for their brand outside the US, and for potential customers. Perhaps they never tried any user-interaction studies for the site - or spoke to anyone outside the country when designing the site.