Declining Growth Rates

Since in the last few years growth rates in mature markets have begun to slow, retailers have had to look beyond their borders to find sustainable opportunities that allow them to meet growth targets. To drive global growth and meet growth targets in today’s competitive marketplace, retailers and brands have started to think about international expansion through leveraging the strength of eCommerce into new markets.

Emerging Markets Growth Opportunity

As markets in Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe continue to outpace their mature counterparts in the US and EU, retailers could use eCommerce as a growth driver to reach new markets. Not only does it allow retailers to interact with new customers, but it provides an opportunity to better understand new markets through low risk, low cost test-and-learn digital expansion strategies, which then allows retailers to further penetrate those with the highest growth potential.

Country Distinct Purchase Habits

When considering entering into new markets, it is important to align with country distinct consumer purchase habits. (Mis)alignments impact your sales prospects given that customers will feel (un)comfortable buying from you. Purchase habits are not just naturally determined by country culture differences, but when it comes to e-commerce buying habits, also by market maturity in terms of technological level of advancement and e-commerce industry maturity as well as already existing local players.

Strategic Importance of Post-purchase

Out of three phases of purchase experience (pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase) it is the post-purchase that carries most weight when defining positive or negative evaluation of the total buying experience. Thus, it will have strongest impact on defining total purchasing habits. Strategic importance of post-purchase market average performance insights lies in the operational implications those alignments would mean for a company entering certain markets.

Previous Next

Tailoring your eCommerce international expansion

In order to compete at all in a certain market, become a part of a consideration set for an average e-commerce consumer, company will need to meet certain market average expectations - say in delivery times, or return & refund policies. Knowing those market averages, will reveal operational and organisational implications for the company - adjustments that will need to be done to make international expansion a successful one.

Ask for a demo Video Walkthrough

SO DIGITAL GLOBAL E-COMMERCE OPERATIONS EXCELLENCE PLATFORM enables brand & e- commerce professionals to define and implement tailored international expansion strategies by identifying the basis & dynamics of competition within a market. Our platform enables competitive cross industry performance benchmarking of best performing e-retailers across dimensions of online (post)purchase experience, including but not limited to, phases of delivery, tracking, packaging - out of box experience, and return & refunds.

Who is it for?

Business and e-commerce strategists and e-commerce business development (D2C) team leaders who are in charge of designing, planning and executing international expansions into new markets. eCommerce leaders who oversee channel execution within a single or across multiple markets. Team leaders who have direct influence, control and responsibility for overall eCommerce performance and continuous sustainable revenue growth.

Marketing team, Supply Chain and eCommerce Operations team professionals are just some of the examples of those who can leverage insights from the market research and leverage them for tactical improvements, performance gaps identification and/or general market trends tracking.

Why is it needed?

The “basis of competition” describes the collection of benefits that are the most important determinants of a customer’s choice between different competing products or services. Basis of competition is not static. It will change over time as competitors match each other in an area, making it a commodity or because customer needs change. Knowing what constitutes it within a single market is of crucial strategic importance.

Given the impact of post-purchase preferences in defining total purchase experience, customer choice between retailers, but also their purchase habits, the ability to align operational performance to meet and exceed basis of competition will determine whether the international expansion will succeed or fail.

How does it work?

Trained researches in target countries perform actual purchase of products from target e-commerce market players, recording their every step, while answering standardised scale based scorecard with average 200+ data points to provide insight into comparative performance on selected dimensions of habit defining elements of post-purchase experience : tracking, delivery, packaging (out-of-box experience), returns & refunds.

With yearly subscription, clients get access to benchmarked country data sets, while also being able to create reports on the platform itself to drive focused learning insights. Reporting module enables comparison of markets, retailers, data points and across completed benchmarks to discover trends.

How do you benefit?

While each company will have specific needs and issues to consider when turning expansion goals from strategy to reality, choice of entry methods will mostly depend on operational aspect of this move. As provision of e-commerce fulfilment carries most of operational implications, knowing exactly what functionalities are needed to be competitive, removes risks of international expansion failure.

With size and scope of organisational adjustment needed for eCommerce international expansion, you want to make sure that it ensures competitiveness of your business in the target market. As e-commerce will be your first and maybe only contact with customers in new markets, ensuring premium post-purchase experience is crucial.

How long does it take?

Depending on the number of countries researched and whether it is a standardized or individual client tailored benchmark research average duration of the project lasts up to 3 months. During this time client is able to actively participate and track research progress in the platform. In case markets of your interest have been benchmarked within last 6-12 months you can gain access to this right away.

Once you gain access to the platform through subscription packages, you can use it during the period of one calendar year, after which your subscription and access to the refreshed dataset will have to be renewed. During this period client designated users have an unlimited access to the data and are able to continuously create reports of their choosing.

How much does it cost?

Standard benchmarking contains research results of 20+ leading e-commerce players from a single market. Cross-industry sample usually contains all e-commerce models (marketplaces, pure-players, brands, e-retailers, omni-channel). Access to the standard country research that details into delivery, tracking, packaging, returns & refunds with reporting module starts at 5000 EUR / year.

In case a client wants to tailor the research so it is more focused on his particular industry and contain additional question sets, standard pricing will be augmented depending on the size and the scope of changes and markets that are researched just for this client. On average tailoring of research criteria (scorecard or industry) entails +30% per each segment.

To read the client case please sign in

International D2C expansion in WE, CEE and Turkey

Nike EMEA leverages insights from SO DIGITAL GLOBAL E-COMMERCE OPERATIONS EXCELLENCE PLATFORM to successfully plan, formulate and execute international D2C eCommerce expansion in WE, CEE, Russia and Turkey.

Read

Flagship clients

Logo (EMEA) 14 markets

brand digital wholesale. com team / brand creative team / digital supply chain team

Logo (EMEA) 47 markets

in-house marketing / creative agency

Logo (EMEA) 17 markets

in-house creative agency / HBO Max EMEA CS / marketing department teams (11 teams) / WarnerBros IT team

Logo (WHQ)

CRM / Internal Comms team

Logo (Europe) 10 markets

media / integrated marketing / UGC / creative / local marketing team

Logo WHQ

European D2C eCommerce Team

E-Commerce international expansion challenge : One size does NOT fit all.

07.08.2019

Strategic importance of post-purchase market average performance insights lies in the operational implications those alignments would mean for a company entering certain markets.

Read Article

E-Commerce international expansion challenge : One size does NOT fit all.

07.08.2019

Outcompeting in e-commerce: learn from the best to win

07.08.2019

Insights gained from strategic benchmarking results will be your definitive guide to determine across which dimensions the target market competes and across which dimensions of post-purchase you can differentiate while taking into account the established market averages.

Read Article

Outcompeting in e-commerce: learn from the best to win

07.08.2019

Cross-border eCommerce growth pitfalls : Ignorance is NOT bliss

07.08.2019

Cross-border e-commerce carries one very significant challenge - distinct market consumer purchase habits that vary from country to country.

Read Article

Cross-border eCommerce growth pitfalls : Ignorance is NOT bliss

07.08.2019

Obstructing eCommerce growth : ignoring post-purchase as the most influential customer journey phase

07.08.2019

If you are ignoring the eCommerce post-purchase experience you are directly obstructing the growth of your repeat customer segment and repeat purchases as important driver of total revenue growth.

Read Article

Obstructing eCommerce growth : ignoring post-purchase as the most influential customer journey phase

07.08.2019

Close
2025 SO DIGITAL | Global Brand Excellence Solutions All Rights Reserved

Back

Home