By Ruth Richter • August 01, 2018
E-commerce is one of the easiest ways for businesses to reach customers outside their typical geographic reach. Retail e-commerce sales worldwide totaled approximately $2.3 trillion USD in 2017, and are predicted to hit just under $5 trillion by 2021. With an estimated 1.66 billion people around the world buying online, if you’re not selling online already, you’re in danger of missing out on one of your largest customer bases.
Grow Your International Business Here
Fortunately, it’s significantly easier than ever to go global now with the help of the internet and e-commerce. Companies don’t even have to start from the ground up: There are plenty of online marketplaces that have already done all the hard prep work for you. All you need to do is sign up, list your products, and watch your international business grow.
Some of the top marketplaces for international sales include:
- Amazon: What was once just tagged as “America’s largest bookstore” has now become an e-commerce giant that sells everything from spark plugs to furniture to—still—books. Expanding its welcome to include third-party sellers, Amazon now owes 40 percent of its business to those third-party sales. Organizations can list under more than 30 product categories in nearly a dozen global marketplaces, all while relying on Amazon’s massive network of fulfillment centers to complete the order.
- eBay: Far from only being an online auction site, eBay may still run its ever-popular online bidding wars, but now also offers “But It Now” options for customers who just can’t wait. Sellers may choose to list products as international listings (some fees may apply). Alternately, any of eBay’s 26 international sites will post products directly to their marketplace for additional promotion around the globe.
- Rakuten: For a small fee, organizations can list products on one of the biggest e-commerce websites in Japan, Rakuten. But, pay attention to details! Rakuten does charge a decent fee to maintain a seller account.
- Shopify: Selling home and abroad has never been so easy! With Shopify, users can create accounts, customize stores, organize inventory, even accept payments and track an order!
- Bonanza: Amazon rival, Bonanza, has become a top site for selling internationally. With a multitude of categories to choose from, you can customize not only your product listing but your Bonanza web store as well.
- …and others, such as Newegg and Alibaba.
Connect to International Sales
Selling to a worldwide market doesn’t have to be the terrifying venture that it used to be. Choosing your online platform for international selling is as easy as:
- Research the marketplaces,
- Use fulfillment services for easy shipping and customer service,
- Connect to all your online carts with IN-SYNCH by ROI Consulting.
IN-SYNCH, a Sage 100 application, offers real-time data synchronization with third-party systems, including existing website shopping carts. No matter where around the globe your customers are living, working, or browsing, IN-SYNCH keeps your customer records up to date, enables businesses to have live insight into tracking and inventory, no matter how many places are currently selling one item. IN-SYNCH also offers customization opportunities, such as loading special customer pricing onto a website so that logged-in users of different companies will see their contracted pricing reflected on the screen. IN-SYNCH can be expanded into any number of complex configurations that nonetheless remain helpful, profitable, and affordable.
Ready to go global? Contact ROI Consulting or call us at 402-934-2223, ext. 1.
