A hint to those who would do e-Commerce in Foreign Lands.....

So...just spent the better part of an hour registering our company's .mobi address. Here's why:

(i) Our UK addresses won't work - you cant have "City" as London and "State" as London - its repeating you see, and there is no "Middlesex" or "UK" for "State"

(ii) Guess what - in the UK, our telephone numbers have different codes - and amount of numbers in them - to the US - and they don't start with 001 either. So, you have to frig a 'phone number.

(iii) When you finally get the thing done, the F"£$%^& site freezes - but you can't re-enter data because - (a 1997 moment here) - your previous order now has told the system that .mobi address is taken back. No unwind.

(iv) Finally, finally it is sorted (in a way - an email tells you you have reserved it but have to pay at this looooong url) - so off you go to pay - and its over to Paypal and the same darn US centric thing happens all over again - yes, and you have to re-enter every piece of freakin data..*!

Now one can say "what the hey, just frig your data - which is fine, but does not help when things go awry or mayhap you need to claim on insurance (trust me on this one). So, for the benefit of .mobi and any other mobile or "2.0" business considering e-Commerce in foreign climes, some strong hints from a Web 1.0 Old Lag:

(i) Guess what - foreign addresses, telephone numbers etc are different - don't put your country's address screening systems in

(ii) Furthermore, it may come as a shock but it is very unlikely that they will have the same states/provinces/counties as your country!

(iii) In general in commercial transactions it is a good idea that if the transaction fails, it unwinds itself

In short, if you want to make money over the Web, make it Easy for The Customer!

There....that's the next best bit of free consulting you'll ever get

* To be fair, they did allow London and Middlesex to co-exist.