There is a lot to consider and it is important to create an individual plan for your e-commerce, adjusted to business model, business in different countries, sales volumes and others to build a successful international e-commerce solution.
Where are you Going and Which Goals do you have?
Think about where you are going and which goals you have before you get started. You should consider competitors, prizing and your marketing plan to stake out the direction. Don’t start a extensive project without this preparation.
Local Knowledge
It is easier to have someone in the country to figure out what is important for e-commerce in that specific country. The VAT number is completely different from the organizational number in Spain and Germany for example, and not everyone knows this number for the company. This could make it different for a B2B customer to place an order if you demand VAT number.
Local payment options are often important. Without the “right” payment option it can be difficult to have closure. If you already have someone present in the country it is just to include that person in the planning process. Otherwise, look in your networks.
EU has set minimum rules for consumer protection, personal information, opt-ins and others. This means that there are different rules in almost all countries. There are big differences depending on which country the site sells to consumers in different countries.
Our advice is to hire legal experts on these rules. You need to find a model that works for your business. Are you selling from Sweden to that new country, or locally in the country? This basically controls which rules you need to follow.
Languages and Customer Service
Decide which languages you should work with. Have in mind that the number of languages will control the amount of work. It is easy to select only a few languages, but it is not good for the customers. Which is easiest do you think; selling to France in French or English?
Also consider that your search function needs to be able to handle your languages.
Customer service need to handle all languages that are available at the site. If you are viewing a site in one language, you expect to be able to communicate with the company in the same language. Depending on the language choice at the site, customers will probably prefer to communicate in different ways. Foreign languages will result in more e-mails than phone calls. Consider e-mail, telephone, chat, Facebook, and Twitter. And don’t forget to have time zones in mind for the opening hours for customer service, so that they match the market you are selling to.
Also think if you should translate yourself or send it away?
Solutions and Technology
Build your solution for several countries already for land number 2, or even from the start if you are in the starting up process for a new e-commerce solution: Consider:
- Prizing per country is often necessary.
- You often want to control product range by country.
- If you want to have a top domain per country or if it is better with /country/.
- Country specific settings are often necessary, for example which payment solution to use.
Build a scalable system. It is important that it can scale out, not just up. This means that you should be able to increase capacity with more, not faster servers. Focus on a good basic architecture, this saves time in the long run.
An international site will demand a lot of integrations. Therefor you will need an open platform that can be integrated efficiently.
Next Part
Next time I will continue with different questions to consider when you plan how to handle product range, offers, prizing and payments.
