Newegg takes its first baby steps into international waters

Order now accepted from the UK and Australia

Newegg's LogoThe day that SemiAccurate knew would come is finally here, Newegg is now international or at least shipping to Australia and the UK. While it isn’t a full-fledged move to both countries it is a start that will be expanded upon.

As of April 8th, 2014 Newegg now ships to two additional countries, Australia and the UK. This does not mean that the etailer has warehouses in those countries, just that they now allow direct orders from both countries on their main Newegg.com site. If you go to Newegg, look for the country flag and pick the one that you have the best proxy in, I mean live in. It looks like this.

Newegg International dropdown

What was one is now three and all speak ‘Murican

From there you can pick your currency from Dollars, Pounds, Euros, or Australian Dollars and go shopping. Even though you are shopping at the main Newegg site if you select a different country you are restricted to a subset of the catalog, That “small subset” is still “several thousand products” which gives you a pretty good idea about how large Newegg has become. The company promises the eligible product list will be “expanding dramatically” throughout the rest of the year.

Why start out with a small number of products rather than everything? Part of it is Newegg wanting to monitor things to see where problems lie, start slowly and work up the volume. Since they calculate taxes, duties, and shipping internationally, a little hiccup here and there could add up to major headaches for all involved. The product list is probably restricted because of differing international laws on things like EMI, toxic materials, and other minutia that often have to be cleared on an individual product basis. Doing anything internationally is in general a real pain.

Newegg is doing the right thing by going slow and learning as they expand. A quick look over the products that are available in some of the countries make it clear that this isn’t a sparse item or two, there are lots of options for the products SemiAccurate looked at. Once these countries are sorted, we expect Newegg to add others rapidly. If I were a retailer or etailer in the UK or Australia right about now, I don’t think I would be sleeping well for a long time to come.S|A

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate