E-retailers and affiliate partners missing out on global sales, survey says
87 pct of companies polled at a recent retail e-commerce affiliate conference said they would like to sell to non-U.S. markets, but 79 pct said their overseas business amounted to 0-10 pct of total sales, World Market Express reports.
World Market Express polled attendees and exhibitors at the recent Affiliate Summit West conference in Las Vegas about the extent of their global e-commerce business. 29 pct said that they and their clients had no non-U.S. business, and another 50 pct said that 10 pct or less of their business came from outside the U.S.
34 pct of respondents cited as the biggest obstacles to global e-commerce the overall expense of handling international orders and a lack of internal expertise. 21 pct cited the need for international shipping and payment systems.
The survey also revealed a common complaint among e-commerce affiliates: that web traffic they forward to retail e-commerce partners is often wasted because their partners are unable to handle orders from outside the U.S.
Among those respondents that do sell overseas, 28 pct cited the U.K. as among their three largest foreign markets. Canada was ranked second, cited by 25 pct, followed by Australia, 11 pct. Germany, China and India were cited by 9 pct; Japan, 6 pct; and France, 3 pct.
