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The world of e-commerce is the small business's oyster, but prying it open to seize the pearl within will take some doing. That's the main takeaway from a study of over 9000 consumers in every part of the globe commissioned by FedEx, the logistics company.
The good news is that for the consumer shopping knows no borders. From Brazil to Bahrain people are buying what they see on shopping TV channels, mobile devices and even small business Websites. Cross border e-commerce purchases are estimated to be around $1 trillion in 2014, doubling by 2018.
Consumers shopping cross border prefer to purchase from well-known multi brand retailers who have established, strong reputations for service and fair dealing. 57 percent of consumers are buying physical goods rather than music or e-books.
Different parts of the world buy different things. The Asia Pacific region likes food. North Americans buy video games. As reported in an earlier blog, everyone likes clothing.
Cross Border B2B Sales are Booming
The U.S., the UK, and China are the top three online exporters. Canadians are the biggest cross border e-shoppers with 91 percent of respondents from there reporting making a purchase. Sixty-eight percent of Brazilians said they bought from a goods supplier in another country. Europeans tend to buy from within Europe, perhaps because such purchases are duty free.
The study, done for FedEx by Forrester, a research firm, includes recommendations for small business, a customer segment FedEx is eager to grow. Rather than rely on your own Website to lure international buyers, the study suggests selling via eBay, Google or Alibaba if your goal is the Chinese market. You may want to be on more than one, or a different one in different markets depending on your strategy. Consumers look for unusual products not available or hard to find in their home markets. They also want a deal if they can get it.
They also want good products and not fake products, which help explain the reluctance to buy directly from your Website even if it might be cheaper to do so.
Even if international buyers are reluctant to buy direct via your site, and this may eventually change once consumers widen their choices and open their wallets more often, they still may look at your site, even contact you for info. Look at the metrics available from Google to see the countries where shoppers are contacting you. You can then experiment with Google ads targeted at consumers in those countries looking for products like yours and driving them to your virtual store on one of the behemoth platforms. All of them have tools to collect payment, arrange shipping, and handle returns. One will even store your products near consumers in overseas markets you are targeting.
WPG occupies a space between your company site and the behemoths. Its strength is the ability to offer a limited array of products to a vetted client base and aggressively promoting members' offerings. As such, we are and will continue to be an important element in your market entry and sales strategy. Plus, no one does customer assistance like we do. We literally go the extra mile, or 10,000.
For us, the FedEx study in part confirms what we already knew. That cross border e-commerce is growing fast and so are the opportunities for your small or midsize business. Yes, the world is your oyster. And if you are selling the actual creatures, there’s a buyer out there right now waiting to add them to their shopping cart.
| Product Model | Inside Diameter | Outside Diameter | Thickness |
| HK1622ZWD NTN | 16 | 22 | 22 |
| BK1616 NTN | 16 | 22 | 16 |