It might even be smart to develop a short marketing campaign that focuses on your commitment to your customer’s privacy, instead of simply stating that you have a privacy policy or stating your policy in unreadable font at bottom of your literature.

About 50 % of consumers today have little more knowledge than brand or product recognition and have little desire to acquire extra information about a brand or product, so it behooves marketing community to link recognition of their brand to trust, safety, and advocacy. Instead of selling to consumers, target your marketing to help them believe that you are making them safer and more secure by purchasing your brand and then back it up!

Darrin F. Coe, MA is a mental health professional, a weekly columnist, and author of “micro loans: finance your dreams available at http://dcoe1.tripod.com/microfinance. Contact him at coe@ris.net or http://dcoe1.tripod.com

I've tried to buy products from sites that don't have Finland listed in their pull-down menu, that demand a State and/or County even when I don't live in one, and don't leave enough room for my phone or fax numbers.

Even though my wallet, bills and bank statements are all full of Euros, there are still (at time of writing) a huge number of sites that allow me to pay in everything from Algerian Dinars to Zambian Kwacha, but still don't consider EURO a real currency. I'd suggest they wake up.

And even more flexible forms that allow all these options may still fall over when it comes to shipping costs. I can enter my delivery and credit card addresses in Finland, but when it comes to choosing my shipping option, I frequently have US POSTAL SERVICES and US FED-EX DOMESTIC only. More than once this has resulted in my simply giving up and looking elsewhere. Wasted opportunities don't get any easier to avoid!

If you use a third party to handle your sales, then make sure you use one with flexible options. I use SWREG, who can handle everything under sun, including fax, phone, online, check, international money orders, direct payment and more. Can yours?

And if your software involves a large file download, then you have to consider many users around world connecting at a theoretical 56 KBPS, who simply cannot even consider downloading a 15 MB file. If you want to reach those people, then you have to make it easy for them. Even if you don't want headache of burning a CD and mailing it yourself, there are services out there that can do this for you, and their prices are very reasonable. Make it easy.

If you don't want their business - let them know!

But ultimately if your business cannot or will not adapt to rest of world, then I have one humble request. Please make it clear from start. I've filled out so many of your long forms, only to find out at very end of process that you can't deliver to Europe.

Amazon is considered by many to be one of world's most successful online stores, yet even they are guilty of these sins. Assuming I don't mind paying shipping, I can order books and software through their US website. But when I go to software downloads, and add these items to my Shopping Cart, everything is fine until it comes to checkout time. At this point I get a message informing me that they do not offer digital downloads to my country. Go figure - and ask yourself why they waited until that moment to tell me.

I've also filled out other long forms and received an email 24 hours later explaining that you don't normally ship outside US; but if I will pay an additional $35, you'll send your $30 product direct by courier.

And when your international user has already downloaded, installed, used and admired your software, falling at final hurdle is a very painful and frustrating process.

The irony in writing this article is that while preaching concept of internationalism, many of ideas I suggest for achieving it are aimed primarily at US developers. But it's not only US developers who need to expand their views.

The ability to reach across globe is yours for taking. But if your software, website or ordering options aren't up to task, then you're throwing away a whole world of opportunities. Think international. Be seen, be sold.