This year has presented some interesting opportunities to us! Shipping motorcycle art to France was a new experience!
The most recent “opportunity” came from an inquiry asking us if we shipped internationally. Here was the message we received: “J’habite Lille en France; Je trouve l’un de vos modèles magnifique et j’aimerais acheter le même. Quelle est le prix ? Ainsi que les frais de transport ? Merci beaucoup”
Our quandary? We don’t speak French! So what did we do? We googled “translate french to english”, that’s what!
Alain wanted to know if he could purchase the Softtail Classic Motorcycle that was included on our website. We googled “translate english to french” to construct emails to Alain and managed to transact a sale through PayPal, which handles the foreign currency exchange.
Shipping Motorcycle Art overseas
Since the US Postal Service is the only (translate = cheapest) game in town for sending overseas packages, we found that we could not use the tracking feature to know whether the package was indeed delivered to Lille, France. So with a little trepidation, we handed the package over for shipping. It made it to France in less than 2 weeks.
Alain received the motorcycle, but there was a problem. “Trop petite!” It was too small! His wife had apparently converted the measurement from inches to centimeters incorrectly. What could we do?
After several more emails, we decided to create a larger “moto” for him. He and his wife were in the process of decorating their home and sent pictures of motorcycle artwork they already had in their game room. He decided that a 3 foot wide motorcycle would be perfect for the space. Mike created it with a few custom aspects. It was boxed and shipped, but this time with tracking since the larger size added customs requirements.
We received an email from Alain while we were on vacation. His message – “Nous venons de recevoir la moto. Superbe !” No translation needed!
Sunriver Metal Works can customize any motorcycle for you!
Sunriver Metal Works can customize any motorcycle for you!