A recent study found that 57% of consumers purchased from an overseas vendor in the last 6 months. If you have any qualms about your virtual business finding an international market, this statistic is enough to eliminate your misgivings.
Of course, it’s not always feasible for a company to open its doors to the global community. The good news is that you can prepare your business so that it caters to a larger audience including those who are in a different time zone than yours.
It’s high time that you take advantage of the borderless audience reach that a virtual business can give you. Check out the 3 basic steps on expanding your virtual business to the global market:
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1. Adapt a Global Business Website
A global-friendly website means more than just a quick loading time and responsive web design.
Imagine finding a website that offers the products you need at a better price. The items are shown in different angles and the images are high resolution. You can even see a 5-star rating below it. The problem is, the website is in a foreign language. Sure, Google Translate can interpret the text for you, but you know how awkward and imprecise those translations are.
From a business perspective, this is a quick way to lose customers. Not everyone has the patience to translate the language in your website. If you want to go global, it’s best to adapt English as the primary language of your site. If you’re targeting a specific country overseas, you can also offer the website in the language of that audience.
Ditching cultural references is also a crucial step in having a global-friendly website. For example, promoting recipes by saying it can be prepared in a few minutes won’t appeal to people who consider spending time in the kitchen as a form of family bonding.
2. Start Going Global with Your Staff
Nothing says global company as much as a team of international employees. Start thinking big by opening your company to online assistants from all over the world.
When you work with a diverse virtual staff, you can expect various ideas and fresh takes on things. From a marketing standpoint, having team members who know what appeals or repels audiences from each of your international target markets is an advantage.
3. Consider Free Shipping
For global businesses, shipping can be an issue for both seller and customer. It goes without saying that customers factor in shipping costs in their purchase decision. On the other hand, a report has revealed that many entrepreneurs feel pressured to do a 2-day delivery even to international customers.
However, the same report revealed that customers are willing to wait for an order – especially if the product they want can’t be found on the Amazon marketplace. So, there’s no reason to charge customers with exorbitant shipping costs just to deliver their order within 2 days. Free shipping is a stronger attraction to the international market than fast shipping.
TIP: You don’t have to offer free shipping for all items. You can utilize it as a benefit in your loyalty program. That is, you can offer free shipping to customers who refer a friend, are exceeding a specific purchase amount, or have earned points from repeat purchases.
Remember, it will take time to see results after you’ve expanded your eCommerce efforts to the global market. Besides tracking your sales revenues, you can also monitor your social media following, website traffic, and repeat purchases. Don’t be dejected if you don’t see a difference after a long period. Another perk of operating a virtual business is that if your products and marketing tactics don’t sell to one international market, you can always try out another.
Your business structure is intended for a borderless audience. It’s time you leverage it now that that you know how to expand your virtual business to the global market.
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