In a recent Internet Retailing webinar, Monetising your international reach, 6 key steps to find ecommerce success overseas, we heard from Julian Wallis, country manager, UK & I, Ingenico ePayments and Chloe Rigby of InternetRetaiing.net in a session on ways of taking online retail businesses into new markets. Here’s a bulletpoint overview of the webinar.
• The webinar took an indepth look at research first produced in an InternetRetailing report, Passport to International Sales, six steps to monetising international reach.
• Chloe Rigby opened the webinar with an introduction to the report and some key findings around localisation, payments, fraud management, deliveries, mobile an social media. They included the finding that Top50 retailers, as identified through IRUK Top500 research, enable shoppers to pay in 2.2 currencies, and use between three and four languages on websites that cover, on average, between five and six countries in the European Economic Area.
• Julian Wallis, country manager, UK and Ireland at Ingenico ePayments introduced himself and Ingenico ePayments quickly before continuing with an in-depth look at each area.
Localisation
• 70% think this is important and about 30% are dissatified.
• What does localisation mean? Ask who is the audience and how to approach it.
• Case studies and examples from Wiggle.de (German language site with options to change to another language), Schuh.eu (multi-country approach), Fruugo (international approach with more than 20 countries on their home page).
• Focus on local language, pricing and currencies. Build trust through reviews.
Delivery
• Almost 40% said international logistics were somewhat tailored, and almost 30% said they were not satisfied with their service.
• Case studies and examples from SmartBuyGlasses (shows international delivery), BHS (makes delivery times clear), Euro Car Parts (localised around deliveries, support, and reviews, with the supplier varying by market).
• Takeaways: Use local delivery method, consider stocking locally, be transparent about delivery times and returns policy, consider working with a partner that can simplify the process.
Payment
• Only 24% have a highly tailored solution.
• Huge range of payment methods, have to think about who targeting.
• Credit card may not be the preferred payment methods.
“Debit and credit cards are not necessarily as popular in other markets as in the UK,” said Wallis. “There’s a real mix of payment methods and credit cards only represent a small percentage. You have to consider local payment methods as well.”
• Case studies and examples: Wiggle.de (uses sofort, Klarna and PayPal. “These are potentially far more popular than credit cards.”), Schuh.eu (mix of payment methods), Fruugo (uses payment methods that are familiar to shoppers.)
“No one size fits all – have a look at what competitors are doing and how they present their offering,” said Wallis.
• Consider collecting services – one stop solution for accepting and collecting payment methods on Ingenico payment gateway.
• Tokenisation can be used in international markets as well as at home.
• Examples: Charles Tyrwhitt (straightforward checkout experience).
• Takeaways: Country-specific local payment methods, seamless checkout experience, payments strategy important part of the international expansion plan.
Mobile
• About 50% said they hadn’t optimised for mobile and more than 40% said they were dissatified with the experience. “We have to focus on mobile being increasingly popular in ecommerce,” said Wallis.
• IMRG smartphone checkout abandonment study across sales channels – smartphone has highest proportion of dropouts at the checkout. Website checkouts are “not mobile optimised.”
• Case studies and examples: Thalys (optimised and responsive payment pages).
• More payment methods are emerging, and payment will take place in future over more online channels, including social media posts.
• Takeaways: mobile responsive sites, mobile friendly payment pages are a necessity. Think about alternative payments that are more geared towards mobile.
Social media
• 24% said they had highly tailored their social media messages to the market, and 43% were dissatified.
” We as a company (Ingenico) use social media a lot more now and we have really tailored our messages via local marketing teams, reflecting local events and how we can connect with a local audience. Very few merchants have a tailored local social media strategy, and that’s important to engage with the consumers you’re trying to appeal to.”
• Case studies and examples: The Protein Works (displays social media feedback, uses reviews clearly);
SmartBuyGlasses (displays Trustpilot reviews on the website).
• Payments evolving – important to keep up with technology and work with suitable partners.
• Takeaways: develop a social media calendar with local events. Make social fun. Use the local language
Consider customer service response times on social media across different time zones.
Fraud
• 22% said they had a highly tailored strategy for fraud management, but 61% said it was fit for purpose.
‘In some markets, because credit and debit cards are not as popular as some local alternative payment methods, it means there are more guaranteed payment methods,” said Wallis. “That said it is important to take fraud seriously.”
• Fraud chargeback rates are high in countries including Mexico, the Netherlands and France (2015 Global Online Fraud Survey, Ingenico ePayments).
• Need to put a good fraud system in place in most fraud markets, covering payer authentication, fraud expert scores, and merchant rules in order to maximise approvals.
• Optimise fraud prevention settings: “Think about having a set of rules you can tweak to reduce the level of false positives”.
• Consider 3DSecure: less popular in some markets. Can be used dynamically so only used in some markets, or when fixed rules are met.
• Takeaways: use expertise of payment service provider for fraud prevention, optimise fraud prevention strategy.
The webinar was followed by a Q&A session, in which questions covered payment methods, merchant accounts and how viewers could tweet to win an Amazon voucher (final draw takes place November 15 2016). To see the webinar and the Q&A session in full, visit the Ingenico ePayments webinar page here.
