Three international shipping pricing models are common: free shipping (built into product price), flat rate by region, and real-time carrier rates. Each has different impacts on conversion and margin.
Free international shipping increases conversion but requires building shipping cost into product pricing. This works well for high-margin products but destroys economics on low-margin items where shipping is a significant percentage of product cost.
Flat rate by region is predictable for customers and manageable for sellers. Set the flat rate slightly above your average actual shipping cost so high-volume or distant shipments do not consistently run at a loss.
Real-time carrier rates show the customer exactly what shipping costs and collect it precisely. This is the most accurate model but has the lowest conversion of the three — shipping cost shock at checkout is a major cart abandonment trigger.