According to market research firm eMarketer, by 2018 global retail sales will reach $28.3 trillion.
For most companies growing their business internationally online is an ambition, but deciding the next steps can be challenging. We are presented with an opportunity for growth in new markets, but also a new set of hurdles. This is where Lingo24 can help.
If your company is expanding into new markets, overcoming the challenge of language barriers becomes vital. After all, it’s difficult (if not downright impossible) to collaborate with partners and reach out to customers if they can’t understand you.
Many businesses are already reaping the rewards of growing globally online. Now it is all about accelerating even faster. But choosing the next step can be tricky. This is where we come in.
Imagine opening your shop doors to every person in the world. Imagine that they can experience your products and services without ever having to leave home. There is no need to imagine, the time is now.
If you’re not online, you’re obviously… offline; but you’re also off the map. In the past few years most store-front retailers have fully embraced e-commerce and set on a path to international growth.
Working hard in the sun. Honest…
So I was in Miami last week attending Demandware’s US conference. Firstly, before anyone asks, it was all work – the fact that the hotel had a big pool and a beachside vista didn’t influence my schedule at all.
An e-commerce website allows you to reach a wider audience and sell your products worldwide, around the clock, while you’re doing your dishes or walking your dog.
According to a PayPal estimate, international online e-commerce will increase with 24% by 2017. So if you plan to cash in on your e-commerce website, now’s the time to do it, and do it right.
Fashion e-commerce is clearly very fashionable: Europeans spent over £30 billion on clothes online in 2015, making it the biggest product category for internet purchases. Fashion increasingly relies on export for growth and it is one of the most important cross-border e-commerce sectors in Europe; so it is little wonder that so much of its success depends on effective localisation.
Two big success stories are pure e-commerce fashion players ASOS and Zalando.
Europeans have always looked abroad for better deals: Brits buying wine in Calais, Finns venturing to Estonia for vodka, and Spaniards exploring the exotic offerings of Andorra. While the proliferation and spread of digital channels empowers tech-savvy shoppers to go global on a different scale, translation can help online businesses capitalise on the rise of the wandering wallet.
The growth of the internet and the influence of globalisation have combined to make doing business abroad easier than ever before. The world wide web allows you to reach customers wherever they are around the world – in theory at least – and even traditional exporting has become more accessible to small businesses and individual entrepreneurs as communication channels are opened up to consumers and potential new business partners alike.
