With Topshop and N Brown’s Simply Be catalogue both announcing
the expansion of their international business in recent weeks,
larger retailers have evidently already realised the
opportunities cross-border selling can bring. But this trend to
seek new customers overseas isn’t limited to the big ecommerce
players.
In a study focused on small and midsized online retailers, US
fulfilment provider Shipwire found that the volume of
international orders it shipped grew from 11 percent in 2008 to
20 percent of total orders in 2009.
The study of 47 US merchants and 28 online retailers based
outside of the US, also indicated that it was the international
merchants who were most active outside of their home market.
Seventy-five percent of the international merchants in its study
were already trading in markets outside of their borders,
compared with just 13 percent of their US counterparts. Of those
international merchants, three-quarters were doing business in
the States, which geographically offers international retailers a
large consumer market to tap into. In contrast, smaller American
retailers seem more reticent to take the plunge and sell into
Canada and Western Europe, though Shipwire firmly expects the gap
to narrow in the coming months. It believes that as the tools to
sell overseas become more accessible to smaller retailers-Paypal
for payment, Google Adwords for paid-search results, as well as
its own services, for example-American online retailers will
begin breaking down borders in earnest.
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