I will be a little different since I am not living in America. PLEASE, there are thousands of Americans who are serving our country and civilians working on military bases overseas who have difficulty purchasing things online because nobody wants to ship to APO/FPO military addresses. Here are a few facts to clear up some confusion......
1) Military APO/FPO addresses are UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE addresses. For example, my address is FPO. My mail goes to Jamaica, New York where the military processing center is. There, the mail is divided and sent via military aircraft to its next location. While the military handles the mail, our military post offices have official USPS products and services.
2) It does not cost anymore to send something to me than it does to send something to someone who lives in America. Don't be afraid to ship to us for fear of cost.
3) PLEASE offer Priority. This will make my shipping time one week to 10 days. If you do not offer Priority, it will take over a month. I probably needed that item yesterday. I will not purchase if I am not offered Priority. We also can't have anything delivered to us if they ship using UPS or one of the other delivery services. I get so frustrated by that. It is not that we are being picky. USPS is our only way to get mail!
4) We do not mind paying for Priority unless you try to gouge us. I don't think it would be fair to charge me $30 shipping for a t-shirt. Again, I might live in Italy, but my rates say I live in NY. A retailer who agrees to offer shipping to military addresses are not doing us a favor if they are trying to cheat us. I would do without the item before I would pay a ridiculous price. One website I use will charge regular postal cost for delivery, then offer a flat $10 fee to send priority regardless of total weight. I like this website. I use them often. Petco is one of those price diggers for Priority. They will turn a $20 shipping cost into $70 if you request priority. No thanks.
5) I know customs forms are a hassle, but they only take less than a minute to fill out. We would be ever so appreciative.
6) If you offer to send to military addresses, be sure to add that option to your scroll down where the city and state are added to the order. For city it would be FPO or one of the other options. For state, it would be AE or the other options. So many companies which do offer shipping forget to add that detail to their form and it is impossible to fill out the form. It costs them a loss of customer. When I can't place an order with one website, I will go to the next one who offers what I need. I don't always have time to wait I contact you. I can't always call. I am 6 hours ahead of EST. What is good for me is probably not going to be good for you.
7) Clearly state a number where people can call if they have a problem with an order received or not received. Nothing worse than a wild goose chase with a website that obviously is trying to hide this info. To me, it is saying, "We have multiple problems with orders and have no desire to make you happy." I will skip these retailers.
Hope these suggestions help.
