How to Scale a Global Ecommerce Business

International ecommerce is the new hotspot to sell your goods, grow your business, and reach your dreams of becoming a global success. But while the marketplace is rapidly opening up to new businesses, only 1% of American-owned companies sell internationally!

Growing your business to accommodate a global ecommerce business’s demands starts with understanding the logistics and infrastructure. Learning how to integrate sales, implement technology that can keep up with the market changes, and help you adjust to rapid growth.

If you want to learn how to accommodate your business growth and increase sales, learning how to scale a global Ecommerce business is the best place to start. As your website sales increase and expand to reach new marketplaces, you’ll need to implement different marketing strategies, understand the logistics, and make adjustments on the fly. Read on to learn more!

Are You Ready to Scale Your Ecommerce Business?

As your ecommerce business grows, sales increase, and you will likely expand your selling to new marketplaces. You must learn new marketing strategies and quickly adapt your logistics to guarantee more accurate and complex results.

It’s easier than ever to scale an eCommerce business as long as you have the right tools in place. With social media implementation, you can easily reach international customers because social media doesn’t abide by borders. The more buzz you get in other countries, the higher your likelihood of establishing a presence there, so take the time to test the waters before committing to any large-scale business shifts.

Before you leap, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is there a demand for your products in these countries?
2. Are people actively searching for your goods?
3. When reviewing your analytics data, which countries are navigating to your site?

5 Ways to Scale a Global Ecommerce Business

As the opportunity to grow your business into a global eCommerce business looms, there are five crucial elements that you need to get ahead of to make the process seamless. No matter the size, any business can step into international selling, but you need to look at these factors to identify if you’re ready to take your business to the next level before you move.

1. Enterprise Ecommerce Platforms

Using an enterprise ecommerce platform is crucial to help you survive high traffic volume for your online store. For those using WordPress or other small business hosting sites, by upgrading, you’ll get enterprise-level features, support, and infrastructure without needing a licensed or self-hosted application.

By implementing the right software that will adapt to your business’s growing needs, you’ll be able to scale it’s performance to accommodate any traffic volume you receive. You’ll also get built-in tools designed to help you increase traffic and boost conversions!

2. Fulfillment and Shipping Services

Whether you decide to use third-party logistics (3PL) or a fulfillment service company, you will most likely need help handling your shipping processes as your business grows. Order fulfillment is crucial to your business’s success, so as your business grows, it may quickly become more than you can handle.

From receiving the orders to picking the items in your warehouse and packing them carefully to ship to your customer, professional help is an easy way to shift this critical responsibility so you can focus on other more fiscally impactful items.

3. Finance and Accounting

The primary currency in your established region is likely not the same as other global markets you hope to start selling in, which means you need to find ways to relay cost information to clients in their local currency. It would help if you also took some time to reevaluate your pricing strategy to keep things fair and offer whatever payment options are most common.

The broader your pricing and payment options are, the more complicated your accounting will become, so plan accordingly and find a method to track all the essential details. If necessary, talk to your accountant along the way to ensure you keep yourself covered.

4. Integration and Automation

Integrating multiple systems is a crucial component of scaling your ecommerce business. Understanding how to incorporate these factors can help you better connect the different features on your eCommerce platform.

Once you integrate, you can then start to automate. Everything from your ERP system to warehouse management systems, CRM, marketplaces, and more can be combined and then automated to save you time and effort in the long run.

5. Country-by-Country Restrictions

Most products are generally safe to sell across international borders, but you should always take the time to review each country to ensure your products aren’t restricted. Product restrictions vary by country and even specific regions within countries, so take the time to understand restrictions to avoid costly legal fees.

You should also consider how your goods will be stored and transported and obtain the appropriate certifications, fees, and licenses required to distribute your items, as required by local laws. You must understand the regulations for any market you want to get into before committing to a presence in that area.

Where to Start

Now that you know how to scale an eCommerce business to reach the international marketplace, the best place to start is by taking some time to work through the questions stated above and identify which global marketplaces will work best for your specific business. Comb through your analytics and check trends to pinpoint the best markets to start with, and then expand when it feels natural.

If you want to scale a Global Ecommerce Business, you should approach the process like any other part of your business: with careful consideration and understanding. The more strategic your approach is, the more likely you will succeed!

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