Philippines
Select LocationOnline trading really does make it possible for all kinds of businesses to reach out to new markets and customers all over the world. If you sense a ‘however’ coming, it’s this: in a world of 220 countries and territories, and countless languages, you are almost certain to encounter difficulties.
We’ve grouped them into four main areas.
The common payment methods in your own country may not be so prevalent in others. While some forms of payment are happy to describe themselves as global, in practice they’re anything but. So when statistics show that up to 59% of shoppers will abandon their cart if their preferred payment is not offered, it’s worth considering multiple options, including the dominant choice in each country. This could be anything from Alipay in China to online bank payments in India.
What you can do:
Shipping physical products internationally can present its own set of challenges. The addition of shipping charges can cancel out any potential sales of low-margin commoditized items, and take a big bite out of the profits of more niche products.
Then there are complications such as size and weight restrictions, customs duties and documentation, as well as regional regulations and practices that sometimes give the impression of changing according to the day of the week.
Add the problem of items turning up damaged or not turning up at all, perhaps thousands of miles away, and you can see why some e-commerce retailers might prefer the concept of cross-border e-commerce to actually doing it in practice. But it needn’t be that way.
What you can do:
With DHL, you get access to a network of more than 350,000 people in over 220 countries and territories. We’ve got what it takes to help you cross borders, reach new markets and grow your business. We’ve been doing it for years.
This is a problem that seems to predominantly afflict companies from countries where English is the native language. While many people around the world understand English, e-commerce retailers miss big opportunities when they fail to transcreate their content into local languages.
A 2014 survey carried out by the Common Sense Advisory found that among 3,000 consumers across 10 countries, 59% would never make a purchase from an English-only website. That’s a lot of lost custom.
What you can do:
Just as choosing the right location is critical for a bricks and mortar store, so is selecting the right platform for your e-commerce store. An older legacy system, particularly one that was custom-built for you when you were just starting out, may seriously handicap your potential for growth. As you expand into new markets and territories, you may find that problems with your platform start to mount up. It may struggle to cope with multiple currencies, require more and more third-party apps to provide basic functions, or be incapable of working with advanced technologies like chatbots or artificial intelligence.
Changing platforms can be disruptive, and the longer you leave it before moving to one that’s better suited to your needs, the more disruptive it’ll get.
What you can do:
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