One of the major themes this year has involved how to tap international markets without spending a fortune. While spending on international initiatives continues to grow - some 60% of US online businesses with a global presence plan to increase web spending in 2009 vs. just 42% of those with only a domestic footprint - there is a renewed focus on how and where this spending is being allocated (see our report on Global Website Spending). Retailers in particular have looked for ways to be innovative in overseas markets while keeping budgets in check. A few examples of cost-conscious initiatives that have come up recently in conversations:
Exploring
international shipping before launching global sites. There has been a
great deal of interest this year in exploring international shipping (see Global Expansion Through International Shipping). With relatively few barriers to entry and a host of vendors providing solutions
to retailers interested in shipping internationally, an increasing number of
retailers are turning to this tactic as a first step into global markets. Over
one-third of online retailers surveyed are now shipping to Canada
Translating limited site content or translating only into select languages. Global companies tend to spend 25-30% of their web budget on international sites, with translation and localization being key areas of investment. As a result, retailers with an international presence have looked for ways to reduce these costs. Some retailers shipping internationally have translated landing pages for international shoppers; other retailers have done limited, tactical localization of their site content. One European football club with an online store, for example, conducted market research on their fan base and decided to forego translation into other European languages - instead, they elected to translate the site into a handful of Asian languages (more details on this example in our upcoming report on localization).
Investing in machine translation. Long maligned for its inaccuracies, machine translation has reached a level at which it’s being deployed on some prominent consumer-facing websites. TripAdvisor is currently using the technology for consumer reviews and Intel has used machine translation in its customer service initiatives. While machine translations remain far from perfect, interest in the technology is increasing given that many companies cannot otherwise justify translating large volumes of content.
Selecting e-commerce platform vendors that enable new sites to be launched quickly and cost-effectively. Finally, for those retailers who are planning to launch localized sites outside of their domestic markets, the scalability of their vendor’s platform has become an essential part of the vendor selection process. As companies start to think more globally about their future initiatives, the ability of vendors to roll out a series of new, localized sites efficiently and within constrained budget guidelines is essential.
The majority of retailers seem to be pushing ahead with global expansion plans despite the economic downturn, yet all are eyeing ways to keep costs in check. Over the next year, retailers are likely to explore a variety of new tactics to tap into international customer demand – stay tuned for other examples of budget-conscious strategies for international markets.
