One of the core attractions of online retail is supposed to be the ease with which a retailer can address international markets. Indeed, many ecommerce platforms have in-built functionality specifically allowing the creation of multiple regional storefronts around a centralised back end.
Why then do so many retailers restrict themselves primarily to their home territories? It turns out that internationalisation is harder than simply buying a new URL and waiting for the money to pour in. There are a range of considerations that a retailer needs to consider at a technical, cultural and logistical level before they can meaningfully expand into overseas markets.
There are nine things that any retailer needs to consider when preparing for global expansion:
Website
How will the website cope with multiple currencies and languages? For example, does the design theme leave room for translations without ‘breaking’ the design – some languages such as German have much longer words than English.
Translations
Retailers need to think about both product and non-product content translations. It’s also not just straight translation, it’s got to capture the brand’s tone of voice in the local language. Realistically, you’ll need local language expertise to cope with regional nuances such as informal and formal pronouns (for example. ‘du’ and ‘sie’ in German, or ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ in French).
Tax
Even within Europe there are tax variations that the retailer will need to consider, for example do you need to register for tax in each country that you’re shipping to? What are the thresholds for VAT registration in each territory? Understanding these details from the beginning will save a lot of pain later on.
Duties
A related issue, duties are often liable in some situations for non-European territories. The retailer needs to be establish whether these should be paid at the point of shipment, whether they fall within the tax free threshold for that territory or if customers expect to pay the duties.
Payment types
Most retailers think that accepting Visa, MasterCard and PayPal will cover them everywhere, but this isn’t the case. German shoppers can use ELV bank transfers, while Japanese buyers can pay cash on delivery and French customers use Carte Bancaire. There are other regional payment methods and as a result, a close understanding of alternative payment types in each market is required.
Delivery
It seems obvious when considering international expansion, but retailers need to consider whether their logistics infrastructure will allow them to offer competitive delivery times in a commercially viable way in each market. Warehousing and fulfilment needs to be sited in order to allow this sort of global reach.
Returns
Returned goods not only place additional stress on long-distance delivery infrastructure, they’re also subject to an array of legislation in different territories. Retailers need to consider local distance selling regulations in each market before deploying regional returns policies.
Customer service
Being able to respond in a local language is a prerequisite of effective customer service, but is this going to be delivered through native speakers in head office, through local contact centres or through outsourced operations?
Marketing
Simply translating existing marketing collateral may not be enough - local tastes, traditions and linguistic quirks can make a hit campaign in one country turn into an embarrassing flop in another. Retailers need to consider their email, social media, marketing and advertising campaigns in each territory they want to reach.
The core message of all of this is that going global isn’t simply a matter of flicking a switch, you’ve got to build the commercial and technical infrastructure to enable a valid retail operation in each market that you’re targeting. However, if you consider these issues early enough in the process – ideally whilst you’re replatforming anyway – then you can save yourself a world of pain further down the line.
By Darryl Adie, Managing Director of Ampersand Commerce.
PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
For more information on upcoming events, visit the website.
comments powered by Disqus