Talking for the 2020 season, in the U.S., Online holiday sales are expected to surge 34% year over year, nearly tripling the 12% growth recorded in the prior year as per new projections from Salesforce.com Inc. (reputed software provider ).
The pandemic-induced stake in eCommerce in 2020 will carry into the holidays for sure, and with entire sales through all channels anticipated to remain flat, digital is going to gain up 30% of seasonal spending, as per the predictions from marketing experts.
Digital revenue is expected to hit a record $221 billion For the November-December period, while total holiday sales will hit $730 billion as per Salesforce. Certainly, the forthcoming holiday is an unprecedented one, while we’re expecting the digital footprint gets even bigger in contrast to what it has been a year to date, as per Rob Garf, Salesforce’s vice president of industry insights and strategy for retail and consumer goods.
20 years it took in total for online penetration to touch 15%, and in over the course of 2020 only, that will “skyrocket” over 30% by the holidays, Rob Garf says.
So, when you can already see huge sales right in front of you, won’t you love to expand your business and look forward to dominating globally?
Well, we’ll acknowledge you about everything needed in this journey, most importantly, without shedding money.
1. Choose markets that make a deep sense for your business and brand
First of all, do your homework to determine who your international customers are going to be, and after that only, you’ll be able to generate the right strategies.
As per PayPal research, Peru, Portugal, and Ireland are the nation where cross-border shopping is prevalent to the max, while for global online shoppers, China proves to be the most popular destination.
A few emerging markets are experiencing amazing cross-border eCommerce growth in comparison to others. For instance, 600 million South-East Asian consumers are heavily turning to online shopping, and that led to a projected market valuation of close to $200 billion by 2025, and that’s truly surprising.
Picking the suitable online marketplaces to sell on is undoubtedly a crucial decision to make before making the leap and beginning to sell internationally. You need to research figure out which are the crucial ones in your target location or country and what they need for cross-border sellers like you.
Besides that, consider the following: Where’s a demand for what you are selling and why? Is there any need to adjust your pricing? Who are all competing with you in that market? Do any seasonal purchasing patterns exist?
2. Choose the most suitable channels
Once you’ve planned where you’re gonna begin selling internationally, you need to ensure you’re choosing the right marketing strategy to meet your goals. Google and Facebook make local targeting pretty simple. However, other popular marketing channels are worth considering in your targeted countries.
China has an entirely different digital marketing landscape in comparison to western nations, for instance, with Baidu dominating rather than Google. Now, talking about Russia, Yandex is the dominating search advertiser. However, it’s trending down in other nations in Eastern Europe.
If your plan is to start selling internationally and you’re considering Africa as your preference, you may require invest in a mobile app for your eCommerce store.
We agree that eCommerce growth in Africa has been certainly pretty slow to date, but the increasing access to the internet and growth of smartphones has created a market that is perfect enough to reach $29 billion by 2022 as per estimations.
The mobile device is going to be used for Cross-border eCommerce transactions, and that’s the reason investing in an app is certainly going to create an optimal outcome while dealing with this challenging market.
3. Consider payment options
As per the research conducted by the Baymard Institute, over 66%of online shopping carts are left. The conclusion was that in case too few payment options are provided on the checkout page, a large number of selling opportunities were missed. Hence, providing as many payment options as possible work s in your favor. Ensure to you’re offering the payment method that’s loved by shoppers in your target market if you want to kiss success.
Let’s take the example of Europe here. Almost all eCommerce payments are made in Europe by Visa, American Express, and Mastercard, while India and various other Asian nations have a strong love for cash on delivery .
Besides that, you need to take local currencies into consideration when expanding overseas, and if you are unable to offer customers the local currency option to pay, ensure to highlight the conversion to let them see what they’re paying.
4. Deeply consider tax rules and regulations
If you’re selling internationally, you need more than just a decision concentrating on where’s best to expand into and proceed as if it’s your domestic market’s extension. Also, you need to be conscious of that country’s regulations concerning cross-border eCommerce besides how they apply to whatever products you will sell.
Search whether taxes and duties will impact the landed cost (whatever amount you invest in delivering an item) of any products you’re planning to sell internationally and let clients know about any extra fees upfront.
In case your targeted country has a free-trade agreement with any of the markets you look forward to selling into and your product/service category is well covered, tariffs could be eliminated entirely or anyhow reduced.
Customs regulations are another harsh reality of cross-border eCommerce. It’s compulsory for all international shipments to have a customs form pasted or attached to the package’s outside to help officials understand its value, purpose, and most importantly, content.
If you’ve adopted the dropshipping fulfillment method, ensure you find the best dropshipping suppliers to provide you the smoothness in the operational process in the nations you’re expanding into.
5. your return policy needs to be crystal clear
A transparent returns policy provides global shoppers a sense of security, most importantly if they’re buying something from an unfamiliar brand. however, having a well-planned returns policy is just a part of the equation. eCommerce customer service is yet another critical aspect to consider.
You’ll be managing queries from buyers in another time zone. Hence, you’ll need to think about how to handle problems that occur outside office hours.
You can in an eCommerce helpdesk like eDesk, to fulfill customer expectations for time-to-time communication. Besides that, eDesk integrates with all major eCommerce marketplace across the globe, which means expanding internationally won’t need you to log in several different platforms while communicating with your new clients.
Top 10 marketplaces for selling internationally
In 2021, there are numerous platforms helping you in selling internationally. the account setup is unbelievably easy in these websites, and after you’ve decided, you’ll really take no time to kick-off earning!
Here comes our ultimate list of the top 10 marketplaces for those planning to sell internationally, each with its own benefits, and we’ll help you decide what’s there to achieve long-term growth.
1) Amazon
Over two-fifths of the entire unit sales on Amazon are made by third-party choice on the site, which makes it a wonderful choice for those who want to sell domestically as well as internationally. There is more than 30 product categories, access a total 11 global marketplaces (Australia is coming soon), and use FBA and FBA Export to look upon shipping and customer service from 100+ fulfillment centers. Amazon is certainly a big helping hand.
2) eBay
We all know how to support eBay is! Selling internationally on eBay gives buyers the instance to bid on items or buy them at a given price, and the process is very easy. After setting up your seller account, you have to buy an international listing upgrade to increase visibility, or you can post products directly to the marketplaces after visiting any of eBay’s 26 international websites.
3) Etsy
Etsy is an amazing choice for creative online sellers wishing to see custom items, including artwork and crafts. The platform is supporting over 30 million shoppers globally in current times besides sales worth nearly $3 billion per year. You can sign up to use the Etsy Pattern. By doing that, you can build and customize your personal e-commerce website with an independent, personalized domain, and that’s truly supportive!
4) Alibaba
Alibaba is one of the topmost Asian online marketplaces, and its target is to connect suppliers with businesses of various sizes. Sellers can set up an account real quick and begin to offer products to a global audience.
You’re free to offer items in over 40 different categories, including electronics and apparel while accessing buyers in 190+ countries, isn’t that big enough? So if you ready to get deeper into wholesale e-commerce, Alibaba is a top and highly reliable platform for you.
5) Rakuten
Rakuten is the biggest e-commerce website in Japan and serves millions of customers. Its global presence provides online merchants with the chance to sell a huge range of products in over 10 categories, most importantly, on an international scale. However, you’ve got to pay a fee to maintain your seller account at Rakuten.
6) Zibbet
Zibbet is an amazing choice for those wishing to sell products in categories including handmade items, vintage, home & living, jewelry, fine art, photography, craft, etc. With a seller account, creating your own storefront is easy, and so is and join a community of over 50,000 vintage collectors, artists, and crafters, who are flaunting their products to a huge number of consumers across the world.
7) Fruugo
Fruugo is another highly-praised online platform for sellers searching for a global platform and expand their business. It offers millions and millions of products from numerous brands and thousands of retailers.
You can begin to sell in 32 nations and in 17 languages and 21 currencies, all while taking the benefit of one global checkout system. Once you set up your account, you enjoy access to translation tools, which makes it that much convenient to reach out to the international audience.
8) Bonanza
Marketing experts often compare Bonanza to amazon and eBay. In recent years, Bonanza has started being counted among the most preferred and successful eCommerce sites.
Categories are in abundance. They range from sporting goods and books to fashion, beauty, art, home, household. So you can opt to sell in one or multiple categories conveniently. After signing up, you can also customize your website as per your desire to stand out from your competitors. You have the choice of setting international shipping options as well.
9) Shopify
Shopify has earned great fame recently, and there are big reasons! Wanna set up a personal online shop to sell products at home and abroad? Shopify provides an awesome platform, and the process is too simple.
After creating your account, you gain access to easy-to-use tools and valuable tools. With the help of that, you can customize your store, and accept payments. Also, you can track your orders, organize your inventory, and do much more.
10) Newegg
If your products are tech-related, then let’s introduce you to Newegg, which is a superb tech-focused online retailer. However, you can also sign up with Newegg Global and sell in a wide range of categories. This website boasts over 30 million customers, and it’s thriving at a blazing speed. You can list products for sale in 50+ countries. You can select which international markets are perfect for your business. Also, they can handle taxes, duties, customs, on your behalf, besides taking care of international shipments for you. isn’t that amazing?
10 Best Budget-friendly Ways to Sell Internationally
If you’re having somewhat tight grip on budget, and looking to set up your internationally business without putting in too much money, then we’ve got 10 superb methods for you!
1) Sell on Current Site, Ship from U.S.
Your international purchasers can purchase directly from your U.S. website, and shipping their order to their international location is possible. This is the quickest approach to begin selling internationally. However, you must know the duty, customs, and shipping restrictions; your existing shipment supplier can offer assistance.
For instance, DHL offers “Trade Automation Service.” It assists you in estimating the entire landed expense that your international purchaser will have to pay. It’s a completely free service and can be accessed from almost any browser or integrated into the process of your checkout with the help of XML.
Small retailers that mostly have a low volume of international shipments will be able to use the browser-based version to know the entire landed expense and, after that, notify the end customer of the complete order value, which incorporates the shipping expenses for payment.
2) Ship Internationally Using a Third-Party Service
There are numerous options available to ship internationally in case you can afford to spend some bucks a month to work with any third-party.
- Use a service such as Bongo International , GetMyUSMail, or MyAmericanShipper, which permits you to ship all international shipments to the solitary U.S. address. The service supplier then forwards the order destination internationally, managing all the complexities of duty, customs, and regulations.
- Try to use a shipping consolidation service such as BorderJump to ship international orders to any hub available U.S., and the service supplier will consolidate the orders by country & ship them together to your end customers, which helps in reducing shipping expenses.
- Sign up to a site that shops on behalf of the international customer and then consolidates and ships the order internationally. Organizations that offer this service are American-Checkout and MyAmericanShopper.
- You can sell using services, for example, iGlobalExports also, where the service supplier purchases products at a discount from you and after that fulfill the order for your international customer. Your site just requires integration with the service supplier.
3) Try out the leading platforms to target International Marketplace
Selling your products on international marketplaces is possible, like eBay, Rakuten, and Buy.com, to begin producing revenue from customers outside the United States. Alibaba is an ideal site for business-to-business sales and to list your products.
However, your business must comply with the international marketplace rules before you can begin selling. For instance, before you can sell in Japan on Rakuten, they need you to register your business first. We’ve already provided the list up there, along with the specialties of each dominating online internationally-selling platform.
4) Drop Ship Internationally
Dropshipping has come up as a decent way to sell internationally.
While using drop-ship vendors, you should check if they’ll ship your orders internationally. With the help of that, you can start selling there immediately.
If not, then you can follow two other options: (a) Find drop-ship vendors in your targeted foreign nations. ; or (b) Find drop-ship vendors who can ship internationally for you. This is going to work only if your website sells products that are provided by foreign drop-ship vendors; otherwise, you’ll have to change your product set.
5) Support International Payment Methods
We’d prefer to start with a few examples here. eWallets are developing in the Nordic region. For online transactions, a bank transfer is the most chosen payment method in Germany. JCB credit cards hold over 40% market share in Japan.
With such a variety of payment methods used worldwide, it’s crucial to use them as per your target markets. You can integrate with all these payment methods from your eCommerce platform. Otherwise, you can simply integrate with a company offering these services, for example, CyberSource, 2Checkout, and WorldPay.
Majority of these companies integrate conveniently with most -known eCommerce platforms besides offering fraud management and payment settlement.
6) Support International Currencies
There are numerous different methods to support international currencies on your website. You can manually generate prices in various currencies and, as per the end user’s country, highlight prices in the associated currency. Besides that, you could also integrate with various currency exchange rate sites such as Oanda.com and display prices in local currencies as per the current exchange rate, and that brings great convenience to the buyers. A few retailers like integrating with services such as E4X , which displays the price of the product in the customer’s native currency. However, you, as a retailer, the retailers get paid in U.S dollars.
7) Partner with a Foreign Company to Stock & Ship your Products
If your customers are intense in a certain region, this option will work well.
You can build relationships with one or multiple Fulfillment and logistics companies in a specifically targeted region. Further, you can ship them your products in huge quantities. Afterward, they can fulfill your orders directly for that region. Numerous larger retailers practice this; for example, those sourcing their products from the Taiwan and China region.
Rather than first shipping the products to the United States and then re-shipping them to customers in Taiwan and China, they are adopting logistics partners in those areas. Similarly, Shapiro.com provides you with a program to Fulfillment by the United States Amazon merchants to store & ship their products in Europe.
8) Localize your Site
Localizing your site based on their language and country certainly offers a better experience to your customers, and to do that, use a translation vendor such as FoxTranslate, or you can adopt a software solution. OneLink from Translations.com is a cool example here. You can also integrate your own eCommerce website with FiftyOne.com to provide localization services.
You need to review all of these options on the basis of the requirements of your target markets. Localizing the checkout flow first should be your priority, then the product catalog. At last, we’d say, instructional text on the pages.
The translation is just one aspect of localization. Besides that, it includes bringing changes to support local date formats, address formats, and cultural variations.
For localizing your business, setting up your website’s country-specific domains is also crucial. That way, the natural search engine will rank your search results well in that country. Also, it will help you to beat the competition and dominate various local businesses. You should go for web hosting with better service and loading speed in that country.
9) Implement a Global eCommerce Solution
If you want great flexibility with a perfectly structured procedure for onboarding countries selling internationally, then A global eCommerce solution is what you should implement for sure.
The solution has a matrix to manage rules for various locales — for example, shipping providers by payment methods and region. This is a bit expensive option because it needs effort and time to design and implement the solution.
If your global website generates huge dollars in annual revenue, then it can eventually be cost-effective. Larger retailers use products such as IBM’s WebSphere Commerce package or Oracle’s ATG to do this. Those solutions perfectly resolve the technology side of international selling. However, you, as a retailer, still have to work out with the people and processes.
10) Offer Local Customer Service
It becomes a challenge to sell when the region you’ve targeted has non-English-speaking customers. To meet the customer service requirements of such a customer base, partnering with companies like Orium or hiring native speakers is a compulsory step.
This can be expensive a few times; it’s crucial to identify which markets heavily need these native speakers. On the other hand, in other smaller markets, you need to offer maximum local-language customer service info online possible, in a FAQ page besides a customer service knowledge-base page.
That doesn’t cost you anyway high. Also, provide an email address to assist those customers. Most importantly, the training of your customer service team should be perfect on various aspects of your business, and you need to allot duties to your staff members perfectly.
They need to understand (a) how to process refunds as per your policy, (b) the calculations for customs and duty, and (c) how to assist customers with their questions related to returns, replacements, refunds, etc.
The Conclusion
So, selling internationally requires nothing more than dedication, valor, money, and most importantly, right knowledge. If you followed our “How to sell Globally this Holiday Season,” then we’re sure that you’re filled with energy! Now, just take the right actions, and ensure a great increment in your business.
