I think the original problem here may be caused simply by poor website design, which will have created a compulsory field for the US "Zip code" and "state". Many US based sites used to have this problem, but are slowly waking up the fact that there are people outside the USA who might just want to buy their product. Remember that we are talking about a country here where until very recently, banks have been restricted to operating state-by-state. And has anyone ever tried to cash sterling travellers cheques in the USA?