QUESTION: I've been selling on eBay and Amazon for about a year. I don't offer international shipping, but I'm considering it. What are the pros and cons?

ANSWER: On the plus side, offering international shipping will get you some additional sales and more volume -- perhaps another 7 percent, depending on your stock. Hard-to-find items attract overseas buyers, so it's smart to offer "international shipping" for your higher-priced items.

But there are so many drawbacks to international shipping, I've eliminated it on all but my most expensive listings in the past year.

Overseas shipping sucks up a lot of your time. You must complete customs forms and deal with the inevitable confused overseas buyers. These customers require lots more hand-holding -- e-mailing back and forth, repeatedly clarifying the shipping terms, etc. Sometimes overseas buyers don't use English well, so communicating is a challenge.

On the other hand, international customers buy a good percentage of higher-end, scarce titles that they're unable to find locally. So on those high-margin sales, I'm willing to put up with the occasional hassle.

If you're still building your feedback record and need the cashflow, international shipping is a good option. I never worry about insuring overseas shipments worth less than $75. But if you're sending a super-expensive item, insurance is worth the peace of mind. However, Postal insurance isn't available for Global Priority packages. You'll need to ship the book via regular airmail to insure it, so that will be considerably more expensive.

Also, there are a few countries where the Postal Service doesn't send Global Priority mail, including Italy, Greece, Saudi Arabia and some others. So you'll need to send those via regular airmail, but fortunately Canada and Western Europe will account for most of your international sales.