Hacking D2C Growth: A D2C Brand’s Guide To A Cross-Border Ecommerce Strategy

The global cross-border ecommerce market size is expected to reach $4,820 Bn by 2026, with an expected CAGR of 27% through 2027. A rapid cross-border expansion might sound like a great strategy for your D2C brand. However, it can be quite hard to adapt to such a strategy suddenly. It is vital to equip yourself with a full-proof plan before going global!

To thrive in the global arena, a D2C startup must master the ecommerce marketplace toolkit. Skipping any step or getting it wrong might result in getting lost in an already crowded marketplace. 

Before going international with your D2C brand, you must understand and find the solutions to key issues such as customer behaviour and logistics, among others. These are not one-off issues, you have to ensure that they are managed on a regular basis. For instance, you can ship your product through FedEx, but it will be a repetitive process of paperwork at every consignment. It might become easy with time since you know exactly what form needs to be submitted. However, it still remains a repetitive task. 

D2C Checklist For Cross-Border Ecommerce

When planning to expand your ecommerce business globally, you need to consider the complexity and challenges of a cross-border launch. Here are a few things to consider before jumping into cross-border ecommerce: 

Keeping Track Of User Behaviors On Preferred Regions’ Marketplace 

First things first, you need to explore your preferred regions to launch your D2C brand. As part of the process, you need to conduct demographic research and examine your products’ user behaviour and market potential. 

You must figure out your target audience’s buying behaviour to fit your product into international markets. To get started, you need to figure out what your target customers would like to buy from your brand’s product category as a brand. For instance, your mustard oil manufacturing unit can be FDA compliant and can be exported, but it won’t result in huge sales in the USA as consumers in the US don’t consume mustard oil. 

Know The Laws And Regulations Of The Land 

Before scaling internationally, you need to have a deep knowledge of local rules and regulations to account for all the differences. To avoid financial penalties and brand reputation damage, it becomes quite vital to do so. These actually make up one of the biggest pain points while thinking of a cross-border launch.

Choose The Right Logistics & Supply Chain Management Partner

Warehousing and supply chain management are large pieces of the ecommerce puzzle. If you can’t physically store your brand products, how will you be able to sell to your target market? Finding the right logistics partner is the key to providing smooth and satisfactory delivery service to your customers.  

Choosing The Right Marketplace To Market Your Product 

If you are in the ecommerce business, you know the value of choosing the right marketplace to market your product to the target customers. With a global plan in place, Amazon is one of the widely used marketplaces to sell your products. Customers prefer the marketplace because of the established consumer trust and engaging customer shopping experience.

Though what should be your choice if you want to sell beyond Amazon? For instance, speciality products might need advanced marketplaces. If you are selling handcrafted products, you might need to market and sell your products on marketplaces such as Etsy among others. 

The Case For Global Commerce

Without any doubt, the cross-border ecommerce landscape is going to witness an upward trajectory—the sky’s the limit! In fact, 57% of online shoppers buy from global retailers. Additionally, in 2020, 1 in every 5 ecommerce dollars was generated via cross-border trade. 

D2C brands have an immense number of opportunities to grow globally. Moreover, post-pandemic customers’ behaviour data shows they still prefer to shop online due to convenience and engaging buying experience. 

If you have a D2C brand and eagerly want to take it cross-border — focus on building customer-centric products and solving these issues. Mastering the cross-border market requirements beforehand will help you resolve all the cross-border complexities that go along with it to thrive globally.

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