First, we have the shipping policy spelled out (we will ship a surfboard under 8'4" to anywhere in the US for $79).

In some cases we lose money.

But we've had to specify that the $79 is ONLY for the lower 48 states.  We have to charge more for shipping to hawaii and Alaska not to mention international customers.  We use UPS excusively at this point.

We recently started obtaining quotes for international shipping from UPS that are referred to as DDP Shipments.  This includes all applicable taxes, duties, etc).  We ask our international customers to request a shipping rate quote before they buy.  About 75% decide that the import duties are too high, but we have customers that go ahead and wire us the money for the shipment.

As long as the customer knows before the shipment is sent, it works for all sides.

I'm not a programmer, so I would not know how to do that.  I feel that this may be something for every PC user that ships outside his/her country.   It kind of falls into the disclaimer category, things that are madatory to be displayed when selling things.  Germany for example has really tight rules for that, and I know that some have to be displayed during checkout.  The US does not have this tighness, but we are required to display terms or use, privacy notices, and have contact information no more then 2 clicks away from any page.

Katharina

I'm already using that section to inform the customer of the free shipping option over 150 dollars, and we need that area occationaly for shipping delays when we are at a festival.

Besides that I don't want to show a customs notice there to the domestic customers.  It just confuses them, since we import items.  It makes them think the items are being shipped to them for overseas and they have to pay customs.  Fact is all imported items are in stock here in the USA. 

Katharina

We have a problem with customers overseas.  They sometimes get upset and complain about custom duty charges.  Think like they are to high, they would have not ordered if they had known how high.  Reallity is it's beyond our control, and it is impossible for us to predetermine how much before the ship.  Can you impagine how much time that is, if we had to find each country and figure out their way of doing it.  We had to add the following to our store footer:

NOTICE INTERNATIONAL ORDERS SHIPPED OUTSIDE THE USA:
Your order may be subject to additional Import/Duty Fees and/or VAT or other local taxes that are not reflected in your order total.
Any such additional fees or taxes are the sole responsibility of the customer and may be charged at delivery.

The problem is they still complain, because they don't seem to look down there.  A good solution would be an additional screen at checkout for international customers only.  Where they see this notice and have to click that they understand this before they can continue to checkout. 

Katharina