Is your company ready to go global with ecommerce? Maybe it should be. Opportunities to sell globally are substantial and growing. While ecommerce retail sales in the United States are rising -- expected to reach $523 billion in the next five years -- that number is growing even more rapidly worldwide.
Globally, business-to-consumer (B2C) online sales is on pace to exceed $2 trillion by 2017.
1. Assess supply and demand.
To get a clearer picture of your probability for success in other markets, first assess your business from the local point of view in your product's new space. Conduct a regional analysis around local competitors, product demand, pricing and consumer behavior.
This knowledge will help you home in on the size of the market that exists, the supply-and-demand dynamic for your product and the price at which it can be sold.
2. Localize your product.
Businesses that launch physical products in international markets usually need to augment or adapt their solutions to support local preferences. Many U.S.-based businesses have failed to bring existing products to new markets because company leaders think that aggressive marketing or pricing can change entrenched cultural appetites.
3. Localize your site.
Authentic localization is a crucial driver for regionalized sales. Your ecommerce site experience should reflect the time and care you spent customizing the product itself. Consumers won't make a purchase if they don't understand your product or can't tune in to your message. In fact, 87 percent of consumers who can’t read English won’t purchase products or services from an English-language website, while 60 percent of global customers rarely buy on English-language sites.
Recruit a local team to help your ecommerce experience adapt to a new market. Make certain your message translates to appeal to consumers in terms of language, style, tone, shopping habits and terminology. It’s also a good idea to include a glossary of terms for translators to keep your brand’s messaging intact.
4. Set prices accordingly.
When you enter a new market, you must price based on local currency. But price points that work in the United States don’t always work elsewhere. Competitive pricing is important in any market -- and it's determined by the local environment. More than half of consumers give more attention to an ecommerce site that has goods at local prices.
It's also important to support each region’s preferred payment method. While it’s exhausting to track so many purchasing habits, it can positively affect how your product sells.
5. Focus on privacy and customer data.
If you’re building a global ecommerce site, you must understand how privacy and customer data pertains to overseas consumers. Customers want to know their privacy is being protected. They need reassurance their personal information won’t be used for unrelated business without their consent.
Put privacy front-and-center in messaging across your site experience to allay these fears. And back up those words by investing in the technology to keep customers' private information, private.
Courtesy of Entrepreneur
