If you ship DDU, Duty Refunds can help your brand with customer retention and make sure your margins aren’t suffering because your customers are worried about the returns process. We’ll make sure your customers are confident when placing their orders and even more confident if they have to return an item.

What is DDU?

DDU stands for delivery duty unpaid. This means when you ship a product to the customer, the customer will be responsible for paying import duty once the product arrives in the UK. The brand will not have any involvement in the customs clearance process when shipping DDU.

The customer will usually receive an email letting them know that the item has arrived in the UK. This email will contain a link or instructions of how to pay the customs charges.

Once the payment has been made, the product will be released and sent to the customer. The courier will usually hold your parcel for about three weeks (this varies depending on the courier company). If no payment is received, the parcel will be returned to the sender.

Advantages of shipping DDU:

Many brands prefer to ship DDU for this reason – they don’t have to deal with customs. Paying customs on behalf of your customers often comes with extra admin work. 

Because the brand doesn’t have to worry about customs charges, they also don’t have to reflect import duty fees in their pricing. 

Disadvantages of shipping DDU:

What brands may or may not know is that customers can be put off ordering from brands who ship DDU. The customer will have to pay an extra fee, increasing the overall price of the item. 

On top of that, they won’t receive the item until they’ve paid the import duty, which slows down the entire delivery process.

One of the most frustrating things for customers who have to pay customs charges is when they need to return an item. It’s almost impossible to reclaim these charges as the customer will only be refunded the cost of the item and not the import fees.

If a customer has a poor experience with customs charges, there’s a 75% chance they won’t order from that brand again. For this reason, the brands’ customer retention rates will suffer.

Duty Refunds solution for retailers who ship DDU:

If customers knew they could easily get their import duty and customs charges back, they’d be more incentivized to shop with international brands. 

Duty Refunds have a simple solution to this problem. Here’s how it works:

  1. We provide brands with a link to place in their existing returns set-up.
  2. When a customer clicks this link, they’ll be directed to a co-branded portal created by us.
  3. Here, they can easily claim their import duty and customs charges with Duty Refunds.
  4. They get their money back, and the brand has full visibility over the entire process.

What you get by partnering with us:

  • Boost your average order value in the UK market by increasing trust with UK consumers – they’ll know they can get a full refund, no matter what
  • Increase your customer lifetime value through a higher-than-expected level of customer service and a smooth, no-headache, easy returns process
  • Reduce the time your team needs to spend on customer service
  • Gain an entirely new revenue stream through our shared commission scheme