1. How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Free
2. How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Travel
3. How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global International
4. How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Office
5. How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Free

Apr 14, 2016 Creating a global eCommerce website that nurtures buying behavior A negative experience with your website will quickly diminish trust and any motivation to purchase. So, ensure you consider that following points in order to create a global eCommerce site that nurtures (rather than crushes) their decision to purchase. The sleeping giant Amazon is going to take over small business if they don’t have an eCommerce site. Most Small Business have a hard time keep up with the shipping demands on them. A solution can be use Amazon as their fulfillment engine FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) and they do not have to hire new people and they can go global.

We live in an international market. The internet has opened up the gateways between countries, making it easier than ever to appeal to a global audience. But global opportunities also lead to slipups in how your website is presented, and those slipups lead to lost conversions and profits.

The trick is to optimize your website for those global audiences, and make it easier for them to seek out the products in a way that works for them. How do you do that? It simply takes a bit of forethought and an understanding of how users across the world approach your website.

The world of ecommerce is full of opportunity, but finding the right global ecommerce solutions for your ecommerce business can be a daunting task. By now you know the importance of delivering great localized experiences for shoppers in international markets. Top Global Ecommerce Markets. In 2019, the top global ecommerce market will be China, with $1.935 trillion in ecommerce sales—more than three times greater than the US at No. 2 with $586.92 billion. It’s hard to fathom, but China only recently surpassed the US in ecommerce sales in 2013 for the first time.

Handing the major hurdles.

There are lots of questions to answer when going global. In an interview with YFS Magazine, global entrepreneur Tej Kohli talked about the different hurdles he came across when expanding from country to country, including learning about behavioral and cultural norms, legal and tax differences and much more. 'These nitty gritty details are easy to overlook,' Kohli said in the interview, 'but they can make or break a company that wishes to expand globally.'

Related: A Framework for Expanding Your Business Internationally

When it comes to landing page optimization, here are the two major conversion hurdles to overcome:

Time zones

Having been involved in a number of international companies and partnerships, I have found time zones to be the biggest conversion hurdle. Time differences are confusing and distracting, even if the company provides 24/7 customer support.

Here are a few possible solutions:

• On the contact page, always provide the current time in your office, and specify where you are located. There are a number of free widgets that can help you.

• Optimize your site for international phone calls. There is a call tracking software called Ringostat provides a handy call distribution report showing you what time of the day you get most calls and when those calls tend to be missed (due to non-response or too long waiting time). This report allows you to better optimize your customer support team schedule and eliminate customer frustration. Here's some more information and screenshots.

Currency and numbers

Currency confusion may happen on the actual product page as well as on the payment page. Currency is often inconsistent and confusing. For example, did you know that Russians and some other European countries use a period (.) where Americans use a comma (,) as the group separator? Here's a long discussion giving some insight into how different countries handle currency symbols and numbers.

For ecommerce sites, properly handling international currency and numbers is very important.

How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Free

• Make sure on-page prices match the site locality. Provide an easy way to change the currency, should the user want to do so.
• Follow international rules for expressing monetary units. Here's the list of rules for Europe.
• Refer to the complete list of currency formats to use to avoid confusion.

Related: 4 Solutions to Take Your Retail Business Global

Bringing a user to the localized site.

There are two major ways to send a user to the localized version of the site.

1. Automated (forced) geo-location option

Lately, more companies have been eliminating the issue of region by implementing a protocol that registers the user's country. They are then auto-directed to the correct website for that region, set in the local language.

Only one problem with that -- users don't always want that country's website. I have found myself redirected to U.S. versions of sites when my plan was to purchase for a friend or relative in another region, such as the U.K., Austria, Bangladesh or Australia. Taking away a user's choice is usually not appreciated.

How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Travel

2. A landing page with regional choices

A better (yet probably not ideal) way to approach the location issue is to give user's the ability to go to the website of their choice. A landing page with the different links is a quick way to solve the issue. You have a primary page that redirects from all URL versions. From there, the user can make their selection and be taken to the website of their choice.

Keep in mind that this should be based on location, not on language. Someone who is going to a website outside of their region may still need language options that can be customized. A good example of this type of landing page is UPS.

While this method empowers users to make a choice, it can create an unnecessary block or click between the user and the actual destination page.

MotionPoint suggests an option in-between. Analyze the user (based on the browser, IP, etc.) and then suggest a localized version of the site empowering the user to make the final choice without forcing them to search for one.

While this solution sounds perfect, I am not sure how it may affect the speed of the site considering a lot of resources would be spent on analyzing every single visitor. I would still recommend giving it a try.

Related: Going Global With Your Business? This Is How You Do It.

Make it easy to connect to a user's language.

Within a couple of seconds on a site, a user will be searching for a way to translate it into their language of choice if needed. When you post that option on the bottom of your page, it takes much longer for the user to find it. That leads to aggravation and may potentially cause them to leave the site to go elsewhere.

Put the language selection option right in the top header where they will see it at a glance. Make it easy for them to select their language, and auto-refresh the site in that language for them without having to submit.

Using visual symbols -- like national flags -- to mark the area where a user can change the language is a great idea. Make this option sitewide. Another good option is to list the name of each language as a word.

Make sure you have done thorough international usability testing before going global. Use this list of recommendations to get started. There are not many usability testing companies providing global services. I was able to find this site that seems to have representatives all over the world.

Find the best tools.

Global search engine rank tracking

While Google is the major global search engine, it is still not the most popular one in some countries, like Russia, where Yandex enjoys a 58 percent market share. Google doesn't even exist in some countries, like China and South Korea (2015 stats courtesy of returnonnow.com). Georanker is a good solution to monitor your worldwide search rankings. It supports major international search engines (including Yandex and Baidu) as well as all Google localized versions

Global lead generation analysis

The aforementioned Ringostat offers you handy multi-channel reports, not only comparing various international channels but also allowing you to create in-depth conversion reports. This allows you to analyze user behavior based on the destination country.

Global backlink analysis

Majestic analyzes your backlinks based on the country and provides you with the handy map visualization showing your international backlink flow.

Global performance analysis

International load time can sometimes present a huge usability challenge which is very hard to troubleshoot. Pingdom lets you compare how fast and usable your site is in different parts of the world.

Going global is a huge challenge for any business, but it is well worth the effort and the risk considering the huge opportunities it presents. With enough research and preparation time -- and the right tools -- it's pretty doable too!

Are you having a hard time deciding how to make your products available to international consumers?

How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global International

Many brands and retailers are facing the same dilemma.

According to Forrester, numerous e-commerce companies are unsure of how to capitalize on cross-border trade — even if they already have a global initiative in place and understand its potential.

The good news? By making the decision to go global with your business, you’ve already reached the first milestone. It means you’re aware of the tremendous profit potential that’s waiting to be tapped:

• By 2021, worldwide e-commerce sales will exceed $4.9 trillion
• 80% of retailers worldwide agree that cross-border e-commerce has been profitable
• 70% of online shoppers have recently made purchases from foreign sites

Now, you just need to figure out how to position your products to take advantage of those trends. That’s where Forrester’s research comes into play. The firm’s newly updated report provides a step-by-step plan that can be used to create your global e-commerce roadmap.

For example, you’ll get tips for:

How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Office

Identifying the right markets. In years past, brands and retailers were able to follow a fairly predictable path to global expansion: US-based businesses would start by expanding to Canada and Europe, while European-based businesses stuck to other countries within their continent. But today, there are many more opportunities — and numerous factors to consider. Forrester explains many of the most important considerations, such as potential regulatory barriers and market size, in detail.

How Ecommerce Can Help Your Website Go Global Free

Weighing your options. Not sure how to best take stock of your budget and goals? Forrester’s research helps with that, too. Specifically, you’ll get insights to help your business pick the globalization approach that suits your company’s unique needs while meeting local market conditions.

Localizing your presence. Localization is a key element of any global initiative, but few online sellers have the resources to localize 100% of their content in international markets. Get tips you can use to prioritize a handful of the most important features, such as customer service and payments, that are most likely to help drive in-country sales.

Download your free copy for a detailed look at:

• The most important factors to consider when deciding which region to expand to next
• The pros and cons of various options, such as listing on international marketplaces versus building a localized direct-to-consumer site
• Frequently overlooked must-haves based on the different consumer expectations in various markets

Ready to go global? ChannelAdvisor can help. Fill out this form to learn how you can leverage our mix of advanced technology and e-commerce expertise to increase your global sales quickly, efficiently and profitably.