Less than half (41.9%) of merchants who took Multichannel Merchant’s MCM Outlook 2016 survey in January and February said their ecommerce sites are set up for global business. And 37.8% of those who say their ecommerce sites are set up for global business say it’s because they have international payment offerings.
But international payment offerings alone do not make you a cross-border merchant. Shopping on U.S.-based websites can be confusing to cross-border shoppers. So when targeting cross-border customers, sellers need to be conscious of the distinctive needs of shoppers in other countries.
[LEARN MORE about cross-border ecommerce at Growing Global 2016]
Once the customer has decided to make the purchase, have you made the shopping cart experience simple?
If your checkout is not properly optimized for cross-border customers, you could see poor conversion rates, have unhappy customers because forms do not match local address formats, and have missed deliveries due to poor data quality.
But it should be noted that a solid cross-border checkout experience needs to start before the customer proceeds to checkout. There are certain things the cross-border customer needs to know about the purchase – such as duties, tariffs, and shipping costs – before he or she decides to purchase from you.
Download Multichannel Merchant’s Special Report “Simplifying Your Ecommerce Checkout for Cross-Border Customers” and learn:
- When to supply vital information to customers about shipping fees, VAT, and tariffs
- Why localizing the shopping cart helps put the customer at ease
- How important it is to include international payment offerings
- How to build the trust of the cross-border consumer
Tim Parry is Multichannel Merchant’s Managing Editor, and the lead programmer for Growing Global.