Expanding eCommerce Business Internationally

If you run an eCommerce business, you may feel that you can easily expand into the global market. But if you translate your website to a local language, there are different challenges you must overcome when expanding eCommerce business internationally. However, there are a variety of tools and strategies that can make the process successful.

Running an International eCommerce Business

Expanding your business into new markets doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. The process involves assessing the demands and opportunities in new markets and developing plans and strategies to enter and penetrate those markets. Here’s what to consider for international eCommerce success:

Assessing Demand: You need to be sure consumers in other countries are ready to buy your product. You can do this by assessing market relevance using keyword research in search engines. For instance, you can use Google Trends to search for the generic name of your product to see the overall search volume in a specific country.
Shipping: Partner with a well-established ecommerce company to help you fulfill your orders. This will allow you to take advantage of lower shipping rates and maintain your product quality.
Taxation: Look for a reliable third-party company that can help you create accurate product descriptions, comply with tax regulations and work on currency conversions.
Marketing: You need to study both local and international businesses when you’re creating your marketing strategy. You can use both video marketing and affiliate marketing to penetrate a foreign market. Explainer videos work in virtually all markets.

Choosing International Location: Things to Consider

When you’re expanding your ecommerce business into a new location in the global market, you can use these strategies to penetrate the market:

State prices in local currency: Gain your customer’s trust by stating prices in their local currency. Using U.S. dollars alone can turn customers off because many buyers will want to make their purchase in their local currency.
Target big shopping holidays: Common U.S. shopping days, like Cyber Monday, are not necessarily global. That means you’ll need to understand popular shopping days in your target market. For instance, in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, White Day is a popular shopping holiday. In Australia, Click Frenzy day is like Cyber Monday in the U.S.
Provide excellent customer support: You can make up for your lack of physical contact by offering outstanding customer service round the clock. Use live chat, social media, email or telephone to provide instant communication channels for customers online.
Understand Value Added Tax (VAT): In over 60 countries outside the U.S., VAT is charged, so you will most likely run into it. Rules for VAT vary from one country to another, and you’ll need to register before you can submit your tax returns. Then you’ll need to mark up your prices with VAT and pay it to the revenue collection service in each country.

Running an International Warehouse

Having the right warehouses with efficient management will enable you to reduce shipping costs and times and deliver exceptional customer experiences. You need to work with a logistics partner that can help you manage warehouses in international trade centers like Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Dubai and the U.K. From these locations, you can ship your goods in a cost-effective way to consumers in North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

How Can Finale Inventory Help?

Finale Inventory is a super-fast, adaptable and scalable inventory management system that helps you expand your ecommerce business. It’s cloud-based and designed for high-volume ecommerce and warehouse management.

Finale Inventory provides all the features you need to expand your ecommerce business overseas including centralized inventory, order management, multi-channel integrations, warehouse management, wireless barcode scanning and a flexible reporting engine. Contact us now for a 14-day free trial.