eCommerce is Great! -- Global eCommerce sometimes won't work

Sure, we have all seen how great Amzaon, Alibaba and other eCommerce giants are doing. Lots of small businesses are leveraging them to get their own products sold and delivered around the world. Amazon even has set up operations with warehousing within their different regions to give local, fast, efficient sales, delivery and service.

But eCommerce, as most people envision it, doesn't work with anything that requires an export license and has the additional burden that you legally need to know not just what you sell, but where you sell it, to whom you sell it and what the end user will use if for, BEFORE you transact the sell (more on this in a moment)

I am not crazy - check the shipping documents for DHL, FedEX, and all the rest of the 3rd party shippers and you will probably see an innocuous little check box for you to affirm that the shipment is NLR (No License Required). That means they want you to tell them that no export license is needed. That is important because an export license, if it is granted, can take several weeks to obtain and no shipper is going to hold your product for several weeks waiting for an uncertain license and most customers don't think of eCommerce as taking several weeks to ship (eCommerce being instant gratification after all).

Back to that silly list of things you legally need to know.... It's true in general, but especially true of US exports, that you cannot sell things to the bad guys or bad things to companies or people you haven't checked out. In the US part of that checking out could include an export license and certainly includes some due ciligence checking the right information, lists, etc. (and documenting your due diligence).

In the end you need to know what you are selling and whether or not it needs an export license (and it's not as simple as you hope because many products are "Dual Use" and you need to know whether yours is or not).

Then you need to make sure the country you plan to export to isn't on any prohibited country list (yes, there are a few, mostly well known countries on these lists).

Once you get this far, then you need to check the Denied Persons Lists to make sure the Company, Person(s) or address are not on the list.

And finally, though it will definitely cause some heartburn, you technically need to know what the end user will use your product for... a vegetale store probably shouldn't need biochemical equipment, a clothing business probably shouldn't need super computer parts, so if they order it you need to ask and understand what they will use your product for. Okay, Okay, so there is not way for you to know to whom your distributors will ultimately sell to or for what purpose, BUT you need to do due diligance and at least attempt to determine this and document the distributors reply.

So, yes, eCommerce is a great thing and many businesses will benefit from it, but don't do it blindly without checking the questions above.