What if we told you that the key to selling success was stepping out of your comfort zone and your zip code, and expanding your e-commerce activities cross-border? The fact is, the B2C cross-border e-commerce market is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2020, with consumers stating that cheaper prices and access to brands and products not available in their home country are top motivators of their shopping online and abroad. As such, and given the rapid rise of e-commerce giants like Amazon and Alibaba, launching your brand internationally is the smart sales strategy your online business cannot afford to ignore. 

That being said, selling cross-border comes with its fair share of challenges, mainly linked to language, payment, marketing and trust. To help you resolve these impediments to your cross-border e-commerce growth and success, we’ve culled a list of top 8 headache-preventing tips any seller looking to implement international e-commerce solutions should most definitely follow.

Tip #1 – Before you sell, learn the lay of the land 

Like with any new sales operation, market research is THE all-important first step. To avoid wasting, time, effort and money, you’ll need to look into potential new markets to expand to and determine whether they are realistic markets for your particular e-commerce business. Talk to locals in each market to learn customers’ needs, as well as the local language, customs, laws, regulations, taxes and other costs that would be associated with your cross-border expansion.

This way, you’ll be able to keep requirements and nuances in mind when formulating your cross-border e-commerce strategy (See Tip #2), to avoid any potentially costly mishaps and successfully penetrate any international market.

Tip #2 – Develop a cross-border e-commerce strategy

Creating a strategy for cross-border e-commerce sales will help you gain access to new markets, increase your brand’s visibility and boost your revenues. Use the knowledge you acquired during the market research stage to formulate a cross-border e-commerce strategy that is tailored to meet every local market’s needs and include information on local competition and feedback from local merchants, marketing agencies and real-life local consumers. Implement this strategy, one market at a time, to avoid becoming overwhelmed during the acclimation period and most confidently navigate your way around any obstacles that may present themselves along the way.

Tip #3 Optimize your website for cross-border use 

It is essential that you provide seamless navigation and the best possible user experience to every market. This means modifying your website’s (and other marketing content’s) display, texts, images and instructions to suit each local market’s needs and preferences. For example, when seeking to sell to countries in the Middle East, you would want to translate your content to Arabic and ensure right-to-left presentation, while an expansion to the UK would require spelling and grammar modifications, even though your content is (likely) already in English. That being said, while it’s smart to make your website and content multilingual, you should only do so if you can provide support to your customers in each language. Otherwise, you run the risk of attracting traffic, but having high abandonment rates, due to customers being unable to effectively communicate their needs and have them resolved.

It’s also a good idea to make sure your list of suppliers and partners is tailored to each country you’re selling to, and try and collaborate with those cross-border e-commerce shipping and other partners that offer the lowest possible prices, to create a visible competitive advantage.

Tip #4 – Open a multi-currency account

Based on your market research, integrate payment methods that are aligned with how locals traditionally pay for goods in their home country, and open a multi-currency account to be able to support the payments they ultimately make. This will help you avoid the headache and added fees of receiving payments in multiple currencies and having to convert them into a single currency before the funds can be safely deposited in the bank. Pro tip: once you have this account set up, link some of the more popular payment apps (in each country) to it, to enable quick and easy payments at the swipe of a finger (holding a mobile device).

Tip #5 – Be as transparent with customers as possible

E-commerce transparency is a key driver of any brand’s perceived sense of integrity, loyalty and sustainability. Sellers that provide a high level of transparency show their customers exactly what they’re getting by doing business with them, which is part of the personal parcel consumers crave in an era of digitization-motivated distancing. What’s more, being clear and up-front regarding any marketing, sales and returns policies will help you set expectations for transactions and interactions with your customers, and potentially even prevent friction in the event of purchase or service dissatisfaction down the line. 

Tip #6 – Package well

Sometimes, even the most reliable of e-commerce partners can experience mishaps. Trustworthy marketplaces, like eBay, can stock their shipping containers with your wares, only to discover that some items did not survive the cross-border journey. Avoid damages and limit returns by packaging your orders for cross-border e-commerce shipping. Use strong, cardboard boxes, fill in gaps with styrofoam, secure each parcel shut with packing tape and tie it down to the pallet with heavy-duty plastic ties. And make sure to take out insurance, just in case.

Tip #7 – Partner with a cross-border e-commerce shipping solution      

International shipping for e-commerce can be headache free, when collaborating with a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce solution. Ideally, you should partner with one that optimizes, tracks and monitors the entire delivery process, including joining forces with local couriers in the destination country for last mile delivery, like Ladingo.

Ladingo is enabling e-commerce companies to engage in cross-border e-commerce headache-free, by enabling the shipping of purchases of all shapes and sizes in shared containers. The Ladingo platform knows how to optimally load the containers with existing purchases AND deal with regulation, customs and taxation issues, promoting seamless, automated and affordable international e-commerce delivery across more borders than ever before.

Contact Ladingo and learn how you can sell big, ship big, and scale.