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For small and midsize companies with visions of global sales, international shipping can prove the Achilles' heel of e-commerce. A recent Forrester Research survey of 40 online firms found that just 15% could handle overseas orders. Yet an estimated 30% of all online shoppers live outside the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

In recent years, several companies have seized on this niche, selling software and services to help navigate the maze of paperwork it takes to move a package from Missouri to Malaysia. Now, mega-shipper FedEx is joining the crowd, offering a Web-based tool that includes forms for arranging deliveries, a database of import/export documents, and alerts on embargoes and special restrictions.

"It can be pretty complex, particularly if it's a product or destination you're not familiar with," says Tucker Taylor, a manager in FedEx' online division, which launched the free service, called Global Trade Manager, on Aug. 8. Already, about 1,000 individuals or firms have registered on the site.

"A GOOD START." Still, the system clearly has its limits. Global Trade Manager must be used on the Fedex site (www.fedex.com) and cannot be integrated into a company's internal software system. The import/export information is limited to the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, and Britain, though other countries are expected to be added in coming months. And the site cannot yet calculate the total cost of a shipment including local duties, tariffs and fees -- one of the toughest challenges in overseas deliveries.

For all of those reasons, "anyone doing repetitive or higher volume international shipping would have a hard time using it," says Perry Ziff, a senior vice-president at ClearCross. New York-based ClearCross sells a Web-based shipping system that includes more than 250 import/export documents for 22 countries. The company also offers another feature major corporations and high-volume shippers find appealing: the ability to choose from several carriers to avoid being stung by labor strikes.

Still, FedEx is ahead of its competitor, United Parcel Service, which is aiming to introduce a total-cost calculator for international deliveries by the end of the year. For small businesses with a low volume of overseas packages, the FedEx site "is a good start," Ziff says. Just don't try sending packages to Kuala Lumpur just yet.