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Comment by nirui | Hacker News Reader

Understood.

However, I think maybe there are ways to achieve delivery even if the manufacturer is not operating in the destination country? Maybe through a third-party partner such as Amazon?

This Chromebook (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YMM4YC1/) for example, ships from the US and can be delivered straight to my hand even Google don't actually operate here.

Currently, if I want to buy the laptop, I have to hire a courier company to proxy the package (from their US warehouse to the destination country), the company will handle import and customs. But given the nature of the business, the package might be damaged or lost, and when it did, I might only get the courier fee refunded.

Amazon on the other hand, almost never fail, and even if they did fail, I can still get all my money back.

I would totally pay a small premium to get my laptop and other hardware safely delivered. So... I hope Framework consider this.

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They gave a IMO good overview of the difficulties of selling to a new country in a previous post :

> With our supply improving, you may be wondering when you can order a laptop if you’re outside of the US and Canada. We selected and are bringing up our worldwide warehousing and fulfillment partner, which is one very key part of the equation, but it takes quite a lot more than that to enable a complete experience in each country. Picking Germany as one example, we need German language keyboards, a Type F power cable, in-box paperwork and labeling in German, localization for the Framework website, support documentation, and checkout flow, support for local payment methods, calculation of Euro prices and taxes, accounting support for German income, creation of legally sound Terms of Sale, Privacy, and Warranty policies for Germany, CE certifications, a local Authorized Representative to back up the certifications, determination of HS codes and tariffs, an Importer of Record to be able to deliver duty paid, German-language in-time-zone customer support, reverse logistics and RMA support for returns and repairs, region-specific sourcing of off the shelf memory and storage, trial builds of German laptops prior to production, and back-end ERP infrastructure to tie all of this together. That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually a drastically simplified summary.

https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/scaling-up-infrastructure

> Picking Germany as one example, we need German language keyboards,

Australia and NZ are easier because there is no new language involved (both use English); unlike UK, there isn’t even a different keyboard layout, both using the US English layout (but I suppose some people in the UK would be happy to buy it even if it had a US keyboard.) The only physical hardware change required would be a different mains power cord. Some of the other issues (regulatory/tax/currency/customs/etc) would still exist, but cutting the language issue out must simplify things.

Delivery and taxes are the smallest of all problems. When you bring devices into general circulation you have to follow the law for these devices on local grounds. Trading partners can indeed do the necessary qualifications for that, but it is the same bells and whistles. You can avoid it secretly (aka. Pay a courier and hope that the customs officer does not check the certifications on the product). If you as a user use it and the product behaves badly you can get seriously fined (e.g. disturbance of the radio spectrum).

It is costly, very time consuming (think months to years) and very risky (the authorities often reject things and you need to go back to the drawing board) to do it the official way.

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