10 Components of an Effective eCommerce Export Strategy

This list is not intended to be an exhaustive article or summary for everything you need to know about eCommerce for Exporters. It’s actually from a conversation I sketched on the back of a napkin for a friend who asked “What do I need to think about before I build my eCommerce site?” These are many of the topics we cover in the ICE program at the World Trade Center in Vancouver. So here’s the quick list of some of the things I feel you need to think about before launch:

 #1) Market research, make no assumptions: Understand your competition, your target market (it will be different than the one at home) and the local regulations, politics and trade barriers before you choose a market.

#2) Choose the right platform(s): Is it Shopify? SalesForce? Instagram Storefronts? Magento? Woo Commerce and/or Amazon and Ebay? If you want to enter China for instance none of these platforms will work (Alibaba has a number of solutions and partners for you). Some of these tools require you to drive all of the traffic and others like Amazon have millions of visitors but keep a large chunk of your profit margin.

#3) Distribution: You’re unlikely to ship a single consumer item directly to another country. You will need some type of 3PL (3rd Party Logistics) partner or system to tap into who can warehouse and distribute locally. If you are shipping direct or need to ship pallets or containers overseas you will also need to ramp up your knowledge of shipping partners and best practices in logistics.

#4) Marketing: Organic social media marketing, paid social ads, search engine optimization, marketing copy, on-site shopping cart design, and your check-out process are all part of your success. This is a vital area of focus. If you build it they won’t come…. You need to drive engagement, create traffic and build community around your online brand and products. What ever you spend on designing and launching your site is about 50% of what you will need to spend marketing it in the first few months.

#5) Getting paid: Your shopping cart ideally will offer multiple currencies. The good ones have very little friction in the check-out process. I recently ordered clothes online, the retailer offered Apply Pay, WeChat pay, Google Pay and a half dozen other options. I chose Apple Pay, with one click and verifying my ID with my thumb print on my phone I bought the items. This was a relatively frictionless process. To increase revenues you need to find ways to speed up and increase the ease in the checkout process. If your customer has to enter everything manually, one error message can bounce them.

#6) Intellectual property: Are your trademarks, patents and copyrights respected in the countries you plan to export to? Spending the extra money to register in those countries before entering will save you a lot of grief in the long run. The same goes for top level domain names in each country.

#7) Taxation compliance: You need to consult a tax expert before you ship your first order to that exciting new market. For instance in many states in the USA (but not all), you are still responsible for ensuring that local sales taxes are paid on the goods you sell – even if you have shipped them from Canada. This tax bill and others like it can accumulate quickly.

#8) Cross-cultural awareness: Colours (or colors), terminology, greetings, eating habits, social norms, gender issues, national holidays, and religious considerations are all a part of your market entry and on-going marketing, packaging and service strategy.

#9) Cyber Security: Billions of dollars are stolen annually online. If your site if compromised and you lose customer data or payment information, you could be libel for thousands or some cases millions of dollars of damages. Most small or medium size businesses never recover from a major breach. Invest in a tool like Symantec’s Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to stop hackers from using your ecommerce storefront to compromise your customers. In addition to this engage professionals to protect your own devices and business networks. 

#10) Creativity: Watch, adapt and innovate - the online space is evolving faster than ever. Your competitors are likely leveraging tools like Artificial Intelligence to drive marketing and merchandising decisions. New social platforms are gaining traction daily, and memes which are vital to today’s marketing change in format and tone rapidly. We need to stay on top of what’s happening and also invest in learning about what “might happen.” Take a risk, try new networks, new marketing tools, or unique marketing partners and see what can give you the edge.

If you are in British Columbia and are looking for more insights on eCommerce for export or export in general I would strongly advise you check out the ICE Program (eCommerce for Exporters) and TAP (Trade Accelerator Program) produced by the World Trade Center Vancouver.

If you are looking for a keynote speaker for your next conference on B2B Sales, Digital and Social Sales, or Selling in a Global Marketplace you can connect with me on Linkedin or email me at [email protected].