Small business insurance from £5.13 a month.Get a quote.
ENTREPRENEUR HANDBOOK
  • Start a business
  • Buyer guides
    • Finance & insurance
    • Software & services
  • Topics
    • Finance
    • Insurance
    • Technology
    • Marketing
    • Human resources
    • Legal
    • eCommerce
    • Leadership
    • Procurement
    • Investing
    • News
  • More
    • Advertise with us
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy policy
    • Terms of use
    • Contact us
Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
  • Finance
  • Insurance
  • Technology
  • Marketing
  • Human resources
  • Legal
  • eCommerce
  • Procurement
  • Leadership
ENTREPRENEUR HANDBOOK
  • Start a business
  • Buyer guides
    • Finance & insurance
    • Software & services
  • Topics
    • Finance
    • Insurance
    • Technology
    • Marketing
    • Human resources
    • Legal
    • eCommerce
    • Leadership
    • Procurement
    • Investing
    • News
  • More
    • Advertise with us
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy policy
    • Terms of use
    • Contact us
Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
ENTREPRENEUR HANDBOOK
Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
eCommerce

How to choose the right platform for international eCommerce

There are several basic factors to consider when choosing an eCommerce platform but what additional factors should you consider for international eCommerce?

Published by Editorial team, last update Sep 7, 2019
Container ship leaving the port,aerial view.

Container ship leaving the port,aerial view.

When it comes to choosing an eCommerce platform, there are several basic features you should always look for; this includes user friendly-architecture, robust support, well documented API’s, a substantial range of apps/modules you can integrate (first and third party) and options to scale natively.

As your business starts growing, and you begin to look at building a more global customer base (beyond your domestic market) the basic list of things to look for goes beyond the list above, there with this in mind there are several more basic features you should look for when choosing international eCommerce solutions.

Related posts

  • How to choose the right route to market
  • How to choose an eCommerce theme
  • How to choose the right scheduling software for your business

Language functionality

The globe is a culturally vast place with over 4500 languages spoken regularly within population groups of decent size (1000+ speakers). You cannot possibly hope to provide your eCommerce store in 4,5000 different languages, but you should aim to provide translation for 99% of the worlds most popular languages (based on a users IP location) to maximise international sales (by making sure your prospective customers/ customers understand your offering, website and communications in their native language).

If your provider doesn’t automatically provide this level of language functionality on the platform or if you have a self-hosted CMS lacking this functionality. You should make sure you can integrate your platform with third-party translation API’s (like Google) by default to provide this level of translation seamlessly.

In addition, when dealing with communications outside your platform, you should also look to adapt your marketing automation software or mailing provider so that transactional and marketing communications are in native languages for customers, i.e. purchases, signup, cart abandonment (this will generate a significant boost in conversion).

Different currencies

Having customers paying from many different countries across the world means you’ll need to be able to change currencies instantly on the site depending on the origin of the users IP address.

You’ll also need to make sure that your payment provider can facilitate international transactions in the desired currencies and that your payment solution integrates with your chosen eCommerce solution (integration between the two is often overlooked and can lead to compromises, later on, its far better to have solutions that work together out of the box).

Tax by country/region

Depending on where your company is based and how/where you process business and sales taxes will change how important this feature is to your business. However, generally speaking you’ll need to pay a local sales tax within the region where a customer who has purchased a product from you resides (and has paid from). In Europe, this is generally in the form of Value added tax which varies in amount from country to country.

When considering tax and eCommerce, you need to make sure your platform can adapt to different tax amounts based on the country where the customer resides (if it can do this automatically even better). Given the advent of VPN’s you should provide an option for the customer to manually select their region, so the correct sales tax is available for them.

Customer service and on-site sales

Many full-service eCommerce platforms and solutions now come with built-in customer service and on-site sales assistants who can be contacted via a message box on your store (this is usually available as an addition to any base subscription).

This is one of those features that is becoming an absolute essential in eCommerce as it shows a strong correlation with an increase in conversion and a decrease in cart abandonment. However, when it comes to international eCommerce your prospective customers/customers will often speak different languages, if customer service or on-site sales can only be in English your scope to use this feature will be limited on foreign audiences who don’t speak English.

Related posts

  • How to choose the right route to market
  • How to choose an eCommerce theme
  • How to choose the right scheduling software for your business

Its often overlooked but the ability to talk to customers and prospects ion their native languages can make a significant difference to sales and in reducing customer service complaints, refunds and even fraud.

Related topics

Tags: Create a websiteeCommerce website

Related Posts

A person taking eCommerce orders of a shelf in a warehouse
eCommerce

5 Strategies to accelerate ecommerce online order fulfilment

There are plenty of innovative strategies to accelerate eCommerce online order fulfilment. Your order fulfilment strategy ultimately determines how quickly ...

Published by Editorial team
24th December 2020
A mini shopping trolley filled with packages in front of a laptop open on an eCommerce website, symbolsing how having the right eCommerce theme can make a difference to sales
eCommerce

How to set up a successful eCommerce website from scratch

Starting your own business and setting up an eCommerce site is no small feat. It takes a lot of dedication, ...

Published by Editorial team
20th October 2020
Female entrepreneur working on a laptop next to a product she's about to ship to a customer from her eCommerce store
eCommerce

Business landscape rife with opportunities for transformative change

To preface this article, one must grasp the importance of consumer psychology. At a rudimentary level, the average consumer understands ...

Published by Editorial team
11th October 2020
Symbols of digital marketing tools used by eCommerce store owners
Digital marketing

6 must-have marketing tools for scaling your eCommerce business

There are several must-have marketing tools for scaling your eCommerce business and optimising your online presence. In the constantly changing, ...

Published by Editorial team
24th October 2020
A debit card up close symbolising how payment processing technology works
eCommerce

How can payment system providers with in-house card processing benefit online merchants?

In today’s world of buying and selling, it is something of a necessity to be able to provide a way ...

Published by Editorial team
20th September 2020
A physical representation of an eCommerce storefront
eCommerce

A complete guide to improving your eCommerce store

No matter what business you have, you ought to have an online counterpart, especially in today’s time. It is not ...

Published by Editorial team
24th October 2020

About

  • Advertise with us
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms of use
  • Contact us

Sections

  • Finance
  • Insurance
  • Technology
  • Marketing
  • Human resources
  • Legal
  • eCommerce
  • Leadership
  • Procurement
  • Investing
  • News
  • Start a business
  • Buyer guides

  • Advertise with us
  • Buyer guides
  • Contact us
  • Cookie list
  • Datastorm notice
  • Finance & insurance
  • Home Alpha
  • Join the Entrepreneur Handbook community
  • Notifications error
  • Popular
  • Privacy & cookie policy
  • Products
  • Software & services
  • Start a business
  • Terms and conditions of use
  • Test page: superscript
  • Thanks for subscribing!

Copyright © 2013 - 2021 Entrepreneur Handbook Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered offices at 20-22 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GU, United Kingdom.

  • Finance
  • Insurance
  • Technology
  • Marketing
  • Human resources
  • Legal
  • eCommerce
  • Leadership
  • Procurement
  • Investing
  • Start a business
  • Buyer guides
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise with us
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms of use
  • Contact us

Copyright © 2013 - 2021 Entrepreneur Handbook Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered offices at 20-22 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GU, United Kingdom.