E-Commerce: How to Sell Abroad?

With the rise of e-commerce and digital technologies, distance is no longer an obstacle for e-tailers. For thousands of e-commerce sites, selling abroad has become a strategic choice for reaching a wider customer base and accelerating growth. But international expansion can’t be improvised. To succeed, you need to be well prepared and apply an effective internationalization process. If you’re an e-tailer with this ambition, here are a few tips on how to sell abroad effectively and ensure your success.

Why sell abroad?

Internationalization opens up a whole new world of possibilities and offers many advantages to e-tailers who, like you, want to sell outside their own country. When you sell abroad, you increase your sales potential and diversify your sources of revenue.

Selling in another country also helps you build brand awareness and credibility.

A recent study clearly demonstrates this: sellers who export see their sales increase by an average of 30%¹. What’s more, certain product categories find a more receptive audience on the international market, which can encourage rapid expansion.

What are the risks of selling abroad?

Before you think about selling abroad, you need to have a well-established store in your own market. Indeed, international expansion involves costs and more complex management, which will generate certain challenges:

– Higher logistics and transport costs.
– Regulatory and customs barriers.
– Different customer expectations in different countries.

To sell abroad, your local business needs to be well-structured and time-efficient. Managing orders, inventory and customer service can quickly become complex when operating in several markets. A marketplace such as Rakuten is an ideal solution, as it centralizes these aspects on a single platform. It also makes it easier to put products on sale, update product sheets and manage customer relations. You benefit from a large, targeted customer base, as marketplaces generally have excellent search engine rankings. This means you can concentrate on your international expansion, while keeping your organization smooth and optimized. With Rakuten, you benefit from an e-commerce solution that offers you :

– Simplified management that frees up your time to concentrate on your expansion.
– Low costs, with a Starter Pack at €0 and an Expert Pack at €49.
– Qualified traffic with 13 million members of Club R, France’s most generous e-commerce loyalty program.

Five tips to successfully sell abroad

Discover 5 essential steps to successful internationalization.

Identify the right countries

Not all markets are created equal. That’s why, before setting up a store to sell abroad, we recommend analyzing the potential of your products in your target countries. Here are a few criteria to consider:

– Ease of movement of goods and associated customs duties.
– Purchasing power and local consumer habits.
– Development of e-commerce in the target country.

For example, an e-commerce store selling organic products could very well sell its products in Germany. This is a country where demand for this type of product is very strong.

Work on your product catalog

Not all your products have a place abroad. Some brands are only known locally, and many products have a very cultural use.

Before putting all your products online abroad, you need to find out what consumer habits and product categories work best in your target country. It’s best to start with a limited catalog, then expand your offer once you’ve established a sound base and your store is starting to become known. For example, if you sell 10 different phone models in France, you can start by putting 1 or 2 of these models on sale, and adjust your offer according to their success.

Translate your content

Selling internationally also means adapting your product sheets and marketing materials. And you can’t just rely on machine translation. To guarantee an optimal user experience, you need to use language that is natural, accurate and culturally appropriate to your target audience. You also need to be rigorous about :

– Your e-commerce site is fully translated. Most e-commerce CMS offer free plugins to facilitate translation.
– Your product descriptions and advertising campaigns are localized.
– Your customer service can respond in the language of the target country.

Good to know: translating your content can also improve your site’s natural referencing in the target country, and therefore its visibility.

Find out about local regulations

Each country has its own rules to sell abroad. Outside the EU, consumer rights can differ greatly. Take the United States, for example. Return policies there are more flexible than in France, which can have an impact on your inventory management.

At the same time, you need to have a perfect command of :

• Legal status;
• VAT obligations;
• Product safety standards;
• Differences in consumer law.

Offer the right payment methods

While payment by credit card is often preferred by consumers in France, this is not the case everywhere. In Germany, for example, PayPal and bank transfers are widely used. So you need to offer the payment options most commonly chosen by customers in your target country.

You also need to think about currency conversion. To do this, you can opt for a solution that reduces exchange costs and simplifies the management of international payments. WorldFirst, for example, offers advantageous conversion rates and facilitates multi-currency transactions. This solution represents a real asset, enabling you to optimize your cash inflows and reduce losses linked to currency fluctuations.

Manage your logistics efficiently

Selling abroad means shipping further afield. This inevitably means longer delivery times and higher costs. Fortunately, you can easily optimize your shipments with a few simple tips such as :

– Use reliable carriers with suitable offers.
– Limit returns with clear product descriptions.
– Outsource your logistics to reduce lead times and costs.

To outsource your logistics, we recommend that you turn to a complete solution for managing your stocks and shipments. With a network of service providers and warehouses strategically located across Europe, Rakuten Fulfillment Network, for example, enables fast, efficient shipping to multiple markets. What’s more, its integrated system simplifies order management, reduces logistical errors and optimizes shipping costs. You have access to all orders from a single dashboard, and real-time alerts enable you to manage your stocks and deliveries more effectively. By freeing up time on your logistics, you can concentrate fully on your international growth and on what you do best: selling.

Finally, selling abroad is a fantastic opportunity to develop your e-commerce store. But to do so, you need to prepare for internationalization. By following the advice in this guide, you’ll maximize your chances of success. Today, joining a marketplace like Rakuten makes it easier for you to expand worldwide. It gives you access to a qualified audience while simplifying the management of your business. The world is at your fingertips. Get started

Sources :¹Fevad