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9 Proven Tactics to Expand Your E-Commerce Business Globally
What is international E-Commerce business?
International E-commerce is a business that works through the Internet but delivers products to other countries outside your own country.
Acc. To Statista.com, in 2022, retail e-commerce sales were estimated to exceed 5.7 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide, and this figure is expected to reach new heights in the coming years.
This is enough to understand why you need to expand your business to international markets to get more sales and grow your revenue.
A recent McKinsey study estimated that 1.8 billion people will enter the consuming class by 2025, annually spending $30 trillion.
The 3 major concerns that most local E-commerce businesses have in their minds are:
- International delivery: Till now, you are managing your own country’s delivery only with any local delivery partner but arranging international delivery by hiring a trusted delivery partner is one of the major concerns of local e-commerce companies.
- Understanding the local people of other countries: You might not be aware of the interests, behavior, and routine of the local people of the other country. Thinking to keep the inventory on your E-comm website with their local currency, their interest and demand are surely creating a headache for you.
- International laws, policies, and tax regime: Knowing and understanding the customs duties, taxes, and laws would seem difficult. Implementing the taxes on the price of the items as per every country might seem confusing for you and have no clue how to implement it.
Follow these 9 steps to grow your E-commerce business to international markets:
- Identify your most lucrative markets: First, you need to understand which countries you must focus on that can generate the best ROI. Don’t misunderstand that every country won’t be a good market for your products. Research well to find the best markets for your product type.
- Automate for the non-creative repeated tasks: You can consider the automation for the following:
- Inventory management.
- Order management.
- Email marketing workflow.
- Customer support with AI chatbot.
- Gathering customer feedback.
- Targeting and segmentation based on buyer behavior.
- Social media post scheduling.
- Optimize and Redefine Customer Profiles: Research the local customer persona and compare them with your existing customer profiles. Find the best matches to target them with your products. Choose the products to sell that best suit the ideal customer persona of your targeted countries.
- Become an Authority Figure in New Markets: People don’t trust a new E-commerce business easily. It’s your time to make them consider you a trustworthy E-commerce store in that market with your timely delivery, hassle-free returns, quality products, etc.
- Make It Easy to Access Your Products and Offers: Your E-commerce website must be easy to navigate so that visitors would be able to locate the products and the ongoing offers easily once they land on your website. The product information must be easy to understand and includes features and benefits.
- Localize Your Content and Adapt Your Entire Brand: Your website and social content must resonate with the local people of a particular country. It may be a translation of your entire website for non-English countries. The content should continue your brand identity consistent across all countries.
- Consider Different International Payment Methods: One most wanted payment method in one country might not be followed in other countries. You might research which payment methods are mostly used by the local people of that country. For example, Once I find only one payment method, that was a credit card, on a domain registrar website, and coincidently my credit card was unable to process the payment and for that reason, I had to buy the domain from another registrar.
- Collaborate with Local Influencers: Continue your research to find the local influencers that can endorse your products and broaden your reach. But, you must cross-check the interests of his followers and make sure it won’t impact your brand image negatively.
- Learn and Understand Custom Restrictions And Taxation.: Taxes or customs duties are applied in almost every country to each and every item that enters or leaves a county. So, it’s your duty to check the customs regulations and trade policies of the countries you’re intended to ship to. And, make sure to have knowledge of the taxes imposed in different countries. For example, GST and VAT are the common taxes imposed in the majority of countries. Moreover, each country has a list of restricted and prohibited items that can’t be imported or exported to or from another country. So, make sure your items don’t fall into this category. Still, you can sell a few restricted products by availing of a license from the local authorities.
Your future global customers are waiting
Don’t hesitate to implement the above 9 tactics to grow your E-commerce business globally. Though you have to think, ideate, learn, and implement leaving behind the worries to grow and earn more. In this blog article, I’ve tried to cover what is essential to reach the international markets. Let me know if anything is missing and can be added to it.
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