Ecommerce · Cross-border selling
Why your customer refuses the parcel at customs
A customer outside the EU buys, pays, gets a message from the carrier asking for duty and import VAT, and refuses the parcel. You lose the outbound shipping, the return and the customer. It is not a fault in the store: the checkout charged for the product and not for crossing a border. We are writing it down because the Eolas Prints store sells into 235 countries and territories, and it has happened to us.
The sequence is always the same and it appears in no analytics dashboard. The customer buys, the order ships, the parcel reaches customs in the destination country, and somebody has to pay the duty and the import VAT. If you did not pay it at the point of sale, they are asked for it at the point of delivery. And a customer asked for an extra €40 on a parcel they thought was already paid for almost never pays: they refuse the delivery.
The duty is not the expensive part. The expensive part is that you pay the outbound shipping, the return, sometimes storage at destination, and you lose the customer and the review. An order refused at customs costs considerably more than an order that was never placed.
DAP and DDP, one sentence each
They are two incoterms, and they are the only decision that really matters here. The difference is not technical: it is who receives the bill from customs.
- DAP (Delivered At Place): you deliver to the destination with import taxes unpaid. The carrier collects them from your customer before handing the parcel over. It is what almost every store does by default, without having touched anything.
- DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): you calculate and charge the import taxes at checkout, and the parcel arrives with nobody asking for anything. The customer sees a higher price at payment and no surprise afterwards.
DDP nearly always converts better, and not because it is cheaper — the total is usually the same or slightly higher. It converts better because the price the customer sees when they press “pay” is the final price, and because the alternative is an unpleasant surprise ten days later, which is the worst possible moment to ask somebody for money.
The thresholds that decide whether this affects you
Below a certain value many countries charge no duty, and above it they do. Those thresholds are what determine whether your catalogue has a problem or does not. These are the three we see most often, and they are worth confirming because they change.
| Destination | Usual threshold | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | €150 | Below it VAT can be declared through IOSS and no duty applies; above it there is duty and normal clearance |
| United Kingdom | £135 | Below it VAT is charged at the sale; above it, it is paid on import |
| United States | $800 | The highest de minimis of the major markets, and the one that has changed most in recent years |
The practical reading: if your average product sits well below those thresholds you probably do not have this problem and need to build nothing. If it sits above them — a 3D printer, a machine, a bulk order — you have it on every international order you accept, whether you know it or not.
You will get orders from abroad whether you seek them or not
The reasonable objection to all of this is “I sell in Spain”. It is worth looking at where people actually arrive from before assuming. These are the sessions to the Eolas Prints store that came from a search engine over the twelve months to 27 August 2026 — search only, which is the traffic that behaves like people.
| Country | Sessions from search (12 months) |
|---|---|
| United States | 25,297 |
| Spain | 6,576 |
| Mexico | 4,420 |
| Argentina | 4,347 |
| Chile | 4,258 |
| Germany | 4,191 |
| France | 3,880 |
Sessions from search engines to the Eolas Prints store over twelve months: United States 25,297, Spain 6,576, Mexico 4,420, Argentina 4,347, Chile 4,258, Germany 4,191 and France 3,880. The first market is not the home one.
Sessions from search, 12 months to 27 August 2026 · eolasprints.com analytics
We are a factory in Cantabria and our first market by search is the United States, with nearly four times the sessions of Spain. We did not plan that: it is what happens when you put a catalogue on the internet. The question is not whether you will get orders from abroad. It is whether your checkout is ready the day the first one arrives.
An order refused at customs costs considerably more than an order that was never placed.
What has to be built
Not much, and most of it is configuration rather than code, provided the store sits on a platform that supports it. In Shopify you need the tariff code (HS) and country of origin on every product, duty calculation switched on at checkout, and a carrier that accepts DDP into that destination. We use the UPS integration with Shopify, which is built and has run in production: where the carrier covers the destination, switching it on is an adjustment rather than a project.
The part that is genuinely work is behind it: the ERP and the warehouse knowing what is in each parcel, the customs paperwork coming out with the order on its own, and nobody filling in a form by hand per shipment. That is what separates selling abroad from selling abroad without it costing you a full-time person.
Our online stores start at €6,000, and from €12,000 once they are connected to the ERP and the warehouse, which is where this part lives.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between DAP and DDP?
Under DAP (Delivered At Place) you deliver the order with import taxes unpaid, and the carrier collects them from your customer before handing over the parcel. Under DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) you calculate and charge those taxes at checkout, and the parcel arrives with nobody asking for anything. The difference is not technical: it is who gets the bill from customs, and when.
Why did my customer refuse a parcel they had already paid for?
Because they paid for the product and the shipping, but not the duty and import VAT of the destination country. When the parcel arrives, the carrier asks them for it. A customer asked for an unexpected extra amount on something they thought was paid for almost always refuses the delivery, and then you pay the outbound shipping, the return and sometimes storage.
Above what value is duty charged?
It depends on the destination. In the European Union the usual threshold is €150, in the United Kingdom £135 and in the United States $800. Below those figures many shipments pay no duty, though VAT may still apply. These thresholds change, so they are worth confirming before planning around them.
Do I need DDP if I only sell in Spain?
For orders within Spain no, and for the rest of the European Union not in the customs sense either. The useful question is different: if you publish a catalogue on the internet you will get orders from abroad whether you seek them or not. In our own store the first market by sessions from search is the United States, with 25,297 over twelve months against 6,576 for Spain.
What does it take to sell DDP on Shopify?
The tariff code (HS) and country of origin on every product, duty calculation switched on at checkout, and a carrier that accepts DDP into that destination. The part that is genuinely work sits behind it: the ERP and the warehouse knowing what is in each parcel, and the customs paperwork coming out with the order on its own, without anybody filling in forms by hand.