Preparing Your Site for International Shoppers
Web Commerce Today, Issue 6, January 15, 1998
This article contains older information. Go here for newer information on conversion and testing.
Europeans tend to view American websites as provincial, nearly oblivious to shoppers from other countries. Part of the problem is that these new American webstore owners never dreamed when they got on the Internet that they were opening a global business. They looked at the US market, and didn't think much beyond it. They just weren't prepared. But Internet access is mushrooming -- and the biggest growth now coming from non-US users. Our site has 20% to 25% international users. Yours probably does, too. Storeowners in all countries will succeed or fail partly on the basis of how comfortable they make international shoppers feel in their webstores.
Globalizing your online store requires solving problems in four primary areas:
- Language. Foreign visitors may find it difficult to read the instructions for order form, even if they figure out which product to purchase.
- Shipping. How do you handle the many different destinations?
- Currency. How can your shopper figure the approximate price in his own currency?
- Customs and duties. How do you handle the situation when you products are stopped at the border?
The best approach -- and the most expensive -- is to have a separate store for each language group you are targeting. Some store-building software may require a separate store license for each language store, since a different piece of software may be required to get the order forms to conform to the target language (though see if you can work a deal). You may also need to pay for domain names and web hosting in the target countries. Of course, these costs are justified if they help you get a substantial amount of business from those language groups. But what can smaller stores do to make international shoppers feel at home? A good deal, it turns out.
Language
Consider developing several sections of your store, one section for each language. Then all the departments, product pages, product names, and descriptive text can be in the target language. If you have three target languages, this will probably mean you'll set up three sets of the same products, one in each language. The expenses are mainly in translation of the product name and description, and in product set-up, since the same photos are probably usable for all three languages. Don't forget to have the product name in the target language so your shopper can confirm his purchase when the shopping cart form pops up. He may select on the basis of photo, but he confirms on the basis of the product name.
To get an first-hand idea of how disorienting it is to shop in another language, I invite you right now to browse and place an order (but not finalize it) in a foreign language store. Pick from these international Yahoo pages a link to a store in a language you may have studied in high school:
- Centres commerciaux:Virtuels
- Online-Einkaufszentren
- Kjøpesentre:Onlineshopping
Setting up the language used in the ordering system is more problematical. Make sure your store-building software allows full language customization of all the text and fields. Cyberposter, which is targets Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, set up a completely bilingual site using side-by-side columns of text describing ordering policies and dual languages for field names in the ordering system. You'll probably need to limit the number of target languages used in field names, however, since field length is limited.
We strongly suggest using native language speakers to translate the various languages you use in your site. You've probably read the wooden instruction translations that used to come with products from other countries. While you could usually understand what they meant, the effect was laughable. You don't want your website to be laughable.
Shipping
How do you calculate all of the various shipping costs to 168 countries? You don't. But if you plan to sell mainly to customers in Western Europe, you'll want to have a shipping option for each one that has a different shipping rate. Your options might read:US-based stores can use an online calculator supplied by United Parcel Service (UPS) to enable shoppers to estimate shipping costs to many countries. You'll find an example at http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct1/980115ups-calculator.htm. UPS allows merchants, at no charge, to incorporate HTML code into their order form or product pages so that shoppers can estimate shipping costs. While our example shows a great many options, you should limit the options by using HIDDEN form fields so that most of the choice are pre-selected. UPS also makes available code needed to incorporate these features into a shopping cart program. (However, UPS apparently has not enabled shipping information to some countries.)
FedEx has an online calculator for shipping from both the US and Canada, though you may not be able to use it directly from your site.
On Macy's site, when you get ready to check out, you are given a separate track for international orders. Instructions say that they will calculate exact shipping charges and e-mail the shopper the costs. If the shopper confirms charges within 24 hours, Macy's will then complete the order and ship the goods ordered.
Amazon.com provides access to country-specific information, in English and sometimes in the language of the country, for dozens of countries. For example, the information for the Netherlands gives details on prices for various kinds of shipping as well as information on customs declarations. Small stores could provide a page of this kind of information for a number of countries without incurring great expense, based on information supplied by their normal shipper. Translation of these pages increases the expense, but also broadens the opportunity.
Storeowners can also state: "For our international customers, we will calculate exact shipping costs and include that in the charge. See our table (hyperlink) which gives approximate shipping costs to various countries to get an idea of costs. We appreciate your business."
Currency
Most retail Web commerce uses credit cards, and fortunately, most credit card issuers (such as MasterCard, Visa, and American Express) convert the transaction into the purchaser's currency at the time the transaction is "settled" by the credit card processor, a day or two after the actual sale. Let's say your purchase a book at Amazon.com with a price of US $29.95. Depending upon the prevailing exchange rate, you might pay 54.85 deutche marks, plus perhaps 2% for the currency conversion. But what if you're not really familiar with the current exchange rate between the US and Germany? Several companies offer free links to their currency converters.- Xenon Laboratories has a Universal Currency ConverterTM . They also give instructions on how to incorporate their HTML code into your own page. The results page displays their banner ad and info on their site, but what do you expect for free?
- Oanda has its 164 Currency Converter and offers conversion to 168 currencies and additional features. While links to it are free, customization for a small site costs $225 set-up fee and $75 annually for up to 500 requests per month.
Stores that do a great deal of business with a few countries may want to set up their own currency converter. Dragon's Den in Ontario, Canada, does a good deal of business with US customers. Their ordering system has a built-in converter to show the shopping cart prices in either Canadian or US currency, though a disclaimer notes: "Throughout this entire site all US$ prices are approximate only. All orders are billed and charged in Canadian currency and will be converted to customer's local currency by Visa or MasterCard at the then-prevailing exchange rate."
Customs and Duties
Since customs charges vary from country to country, it is difficult to anticipate all these ahead of time. Your shoppers are probably much more familiar with the written (and unwritten) rules regarding their country's import policies than you can be. Amazon's Netherlands page notes: "We mark international packages as containing 'Books -- new' and state the cost of the books on the customs documentation; if the order is a gift, the package is marked 'Gift,' but the cost of the books is still stated on the customs form. We are not able to describe the contents in any other way. Any customs or import duties are levied once the package reaches the Netherlands. Additional charges for customs clearance would have to be borne by you; we have no control over these charges and cannot predict what they might be. You may want to contact your local customs office for further information."You can also receive more information from your government's office assisting exporters. US residents might want to consult export resources from the Small Business Administration. Of course, countries allow all products to enter their borders, and some charge a high tariff to protect local manufacturers. Aull-N-Aull Web Winery ships to 65 countries and offers detailed information about rules and charges for each of these countries. They also include a database indexed to US ZIP codes to determine whether or not it is legal to ship wine into certain "dry" counties.
The friendlier you can make your site for international shoppers, the more information you provide, the more global business you'll do. Why don't you plan right now to implement some changes or provide information in three out of four of these important areas: language, shipping, currency conversion, and customs and duties. Your bottom line will show the difference three to six months from now.
Sample newsletter. We respect your privacy and never sell or rent our subscriber lists. Subscribing will not result in more spam! I guarantee it!