The Pains and Gains of Growing Global

I was reminded this week about how eCommerce businesses can be a little tricky to setup and run successfully.  With the launch of my new book, Marketing, Interrupted, we’ve attracted attention from interested readers all around the world.  And the journey to get the book into the hands of our target audience has not come without a few bumps along the way. Spoiler alert: international shipping is not as seamless and straightforward as you may think!    

It all sounds so easy – just setup a seller account on Amazon, activate your social channels and you’re off to the races.  If you have needs for greater functionality and a desire to offer your customers a shopping experience with more bells and whistles, there are many powerful platforms out there.  Companies like Magento and Shopify stand ready to power up your business.

However, regardless of the Systems you select, it’s easy to overlook the fact that with an eCommerce business model in place, you are practically a global company overnight.  Whether you like it or not and whether you are prepared for it or not – you’re global. When you open up for business that first day, customers will find you.  And those customers may come from right around the corner or they may come from halfway around the globe.   There are real implications here -from currency issues to shipping costs to cultural differences.  If you’re not prepared, it can get really messy, really quick.

Of course, going global with any business is a huge undertaking that requires an immense amount of research, planning and preparation. If you are confident that growing global is the right next step to take, then you may be wondering how exactly to get started. Here are three critical questions to ask as you launch your eCommerce business:

Is Your Website “Globally-Responsive”?

Obviously, your eCommerce website is going to play a key role in the success of your brand in global markets. Therefore, the user experience (UX) that it provides to your prospects and new customers should be a top priority as you begin to expand. To make sure that your website is optimized for international businesss, you will need to know which features are essential.

The best strategy here is to partner with an eCommerce platform like Magento or Shopify that is designed specifically for global reach. Be sure to look for one that has location settings to customize your website based on where your customers are shopping from. Everything from the language to the price to the shipping rates (especially pay attention to this one!) will change depending on the market, so your best bet is to go with one that can adjust for all of this automatically.

Another important feature to keep in mind is how quickly your website loads in different countries. For example, if your main server is located in the United States, but a customer clicks on your link in Kenya, it could take several seconds for the page to load entirely. While this doesn’t sound like a huge deal, it could actually lose you that customer. According to studies, 50% of customers will exit a site that takes longer than just three seconds to load.

Use a host that includes CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) to speed up your website. This strategy means that your website’s pages are distributed globally through a connected network of cache servers to boost loading speeds.

The quality of your site will affect the bottom line, so take care in the design and features that it provides. Make sure that your eCommerce platform is ready to handle a global market and can support a better UX for higher conversion rates.

Are You Prepared to Fulfill Orders with Quality … Anywhere in the World?

You are certainly accustomed to shipping products in your home country. However, when it comes to shipping internationally, there is a whole new set of rules you must consider, such as FOB (Free on Board). So, whatdoes Free on Board mean? FOB information and pricing guides are extremely helpful to understand and wrap your head around all of the jargon in mysterious world of global freighting and shipping. From export fees to shipping costs, you may see that shipping is much more expensive to perform than you previously imagined. And in some cases, it may exceed the cost of the product itself!  Making sure your business model takes this into account is essential before you begin making your global eCommerce plans.

Another major issue that international brands run into is ensuring a consistent experience, no matter where their customer is. This gets far more complicated as the company expands to markets that are further away.

For instance, it may be much cheaper to partner with a local drop shipping company that is located in or at least closer to your new target market. That said, with the lower price also may come lower quality. If your international customers are receiving products of lower quality or with poorer service than other markets, it will damage your brand’s reputation, trigger negative reviews, lead to excessive product returns and refund requests. Therefore, it is critically important that you find trustworthy partners around the globe to handle the assurance of not only your product quality but also your service delivery.

As your business continues to grow, be sure that product and service quality assurance checks are conducted regularly to assess things. Stay on top of your customer reviews and address any issues as quickly as possible before things get out of hand.

Do You Have the Right Marketing People, Processes and Platforms? 

Perhaps one of the trickiest parts of expanding globally is the process of gaining brand recognition. In order to start turning a profit from global sales, you will need to build this sooner rather than later, but getting your name out there in the global market will require specialized marketing strategies.

Your best bet here is to gather a globally-minded marketing team that is up for the challenge and highly knowledgeable about each international target market. Since your online customer base will be dramatically expanding, the demographics, preferences, and needs of your audience will shift. Furthermore, there are some channels (of which you can reach global customers) that are simply not available or popular in places like the US. For instance, there are some social media platforms that are extremely popular internationally. QQ/Q Zone is a common chat app used in China and Taringa and is also one of the most popular social networks in South America. Failing to utilize these channels properly could impact your reach and slow down your brand’s growth.

When you are marketing to a global audience, be sure that your team has an understanding of the culture and customer behavior within that market. It may be best to hire local freelancers for each area of expansion to ensure that your brand story is not only translated properly, but written in the most impactful and relevant way for your target customer.

If you’d like to learn more about going global with your brand, order a copy of my new book. Marketing, Interrupted tells stories of the successes and failures of brands like Weber, Crocs and Faberware as they went global.   The book gives you a front row seat to watch the practice of transformational marketing in action. In this story, the brand marketers are the heroes. They align Story, Strategy and Systems to give their customers a reason to care, a reason to listen, a reason to engage, a reason to buy, and most importantly, a reason to stay and advocate for the brand.

Check out a recent review of the book and my interview with Jane Seago from YPO (Young President’s Organization).