Did you know that 65% of consumers purchase products online from outside their own country? If your eCommerce sales are limited to the United States, you could be missing out on a massive audience of worldwide consumers.
In today’s blog post, we’ll take a look at key considerations to make when preparing your eCommerce website for multinational sales, and how to select the right platform to enable seamless international expansion.
Preparing Your eCommerce Website for International Expansion
Your web presence as it stands has been customized for selling your products in the United States, which means you have some work to do to prepare it for international audiences. Here are three key areas that cannot be overlooked.
- Translating your website. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your English-language website will suffice for international consumers. Research from Harvard Business Review has shown the importance of speaking to global customers in their own language. HBR found that 72.4% of consumers would be more likely to buy a product with information in their own language and 42% of consumers never purchase products and services in other languages.
- Adhering to regional laws and regulations. The last thing you need when expanding your eCommerce business globally is to find yourself in a sticky legal situation, which is why it is crucial to understand all the laws and regulations for selling products around the world. Rules surrounding VAT requirements, sales tax and even cookie policies vary from one country to another, and you need to be on top of all of it.
- Localizing accepted payment methods. Make the payment process as seamless as possible for international consumers by enabling them to conduct transactions in the local currency. But don’t stop there. It’s also necessary to understand payment preferences and how they differ depending on the location of the consumer. For example, almost 20% of payments in Japan are made via Konbini, a region-specific service, and in France, Cartes Bancaires is used for about 50% of all transactions.
Choosing the Optimal eCommerce Platform for International Expansion
When enhancing your multinational presence, it’s important to use a platform that takes a unified approach to global eCommerce. But some platforms perform better at this than others. Unfortunately, there are many that simply aren’t going to cut it. For instance, they might require an app for translations or only allow one language.
So what should you look for in an eCommerce platform if global expansion is a priority for your business? At a minimum, what you’ll need to make your transition a success are these must-have features:
- Ability to carry over any current translations
- Multi-channel sales capabilities
- Multiple languages ready to go
- Multi-currency payments and taxation right out of the box
- PCI compliance for secure card transactions
Finding this combination of essential features can be difficult unless you look for a powerful tool like ZiftrShop, that has been designed from inception to catalyze the growth of your business internationally. We recognize the importance of scaling your business around the globe. Working with a platform that has multilingual and multi-currency capabilities will accelerate your business with no plugins or add-ons. Learn more about ZiftrShop’s cutting-edge platform and how to best plan a migration away from your current eCommerce platform.