E-commerce is a giant market. It may once have been a kind of secondary sales channel, but today it’s nothing less than a defining force in global trade. Consumers expect to browse and purchase products from anywhere in the world with the same ease they experience locally. The roadblocks that many businesses encounter while trying to deliver on this demand mean nothing to consumers. This means companies are getting judged harshly – and they need to find ways to deliver a seamless, borderless customer journey.
Clearly, it’s not that easy. Despite the maturity of digital commerce, many organisations still use strategies based on domestic assumptions, even when their products are available worldwide. It’s one thing to click a button and enable international orders, and quite another to build a truly global e-commerce strategy that is sustainable and scalable.
It’s a pressing issue. The global e-commerce market was valued at USD 26 trillion in 2023 and is forecast to reach USD 83 trillion by 2030, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 18.9% over that period. Businesses that can design their e-commerce strategy with the entire globe in mind will be able to take advantage of this and gain a sustainable competitive advantage. In the GCC, where rapid growth in e-commerce and cross-border trade is driving expansion, companies still face a number of hurdles when doing business in each distinct market. Creating a truly global e-commerce strategy is the key to unlocking this and creating a friction-free model.
This article examines what the term ‘global’ means in e-commerce, considers steps to assess your organisation’s global readiness, and explains how to ensure this endeavour is profitable.
What does ‘global’ really mean in e-commerce?
The first question any leadership team needs to ask is whether their e-commerce model is actually designed for an international customer base, or whether it’s just their domestic operations creaking under the pressure of fulfilling worldwide demand. If it’s the latter, scaling will be impossible.
To compete in a marketplace with such high and changing consumer expectations – on top of the supply chain volatility we have witnessed over the past five years – businesses need to build a global operating model from the ground up.
It’s too easy to think that just because a company can accept multiple currencies or ship its products to regions around the world, it must be set up for global e-commerce. This isn’t true localisation. The goal here is to ensure your e-commerce strategy focuses on the key differences across regions in search intent, how products are described, the types of visuals used, and what actually triggers conversion. These factors can differ wildly across markets and need to be embedded in your strategy from the start. The goal should be for both content and merchandising to feel native to each region.
The way payments are taken and refunded is also an important differentiator. Checkout friction is one of the fastest ways to lose any customer, and international buyers are no different. Your payment ecosystems must be tailored to each market, whether that’s digital wallets in Southeast Asia, bank-based systems in Europe, or national payment systems in the GCC.
It’s also important to consider delivery expectations among customers. What exactly are they used to and what will they expect from your company? What may be an acceptable shipping time in one market could be seen as uncompetitive in another. How returns are processed also plays a critical role in customer trust and future purchase decisions.
Finally, compliance is a major factor. When doing business across borders, there are a number of areas that complicate matters, from tax laws to customs rules to data protection standards. This is on top of varying product regulations. The only way to keep on top of this as your business scales is to put in place an automated compliance infrastructure. A manual approach will not sustain over the long term.
Is your organisation ready? How to conduct an assessment
To conduct a successful assessment, leadership teams need to be realistic about their current capabilities and identify gaps between their future ambitions and their current infrastructure. Let’s look at a checklist:
- Market selection should be deliberate and not guided by incidental order patterns. In other words, rather than looking at the past to build your strategy, plan for the future. Front of mind should be competitive pressure, the viability of logistics, and, of course, long-term growth potential.
- The customer experience you create must resonate locally and be supported by content that is specific to that market in terms of creative, language, and storytelling.
- To be truly scalable, you need multi-storefront capability, the ability to price in multiple currencies, and control regional catalogues.
- Both fulfilment and returns must work smoothly and be predictable to compete in cross-border markets.
- Governance and compliance should be integrated from the outset to minimise operational risk.
Making global e-commerce profitable
A global e-commerce strategy must not only function well, but also deliver sustained ROI. To achieve this, leaders require a clear understanding of unit economics in each market, along with variables such as customer acquisition costs, competitive pricing pressure, and logistics fees.
Each region should be viewed as part of a wider portfolio, with the understanding that individual markets may require adjustments over time. It’s fine to update and adapt fulfilment models, adjust pricing to reflect competitive realities and modify the product mix. At times, you may even need to withdraw from markets that are particularly challenging. Being adaptable and flexible is key because global strategies succeed when organisations continually refine their approach rather than viewing international expansion as a single rollout.
Your path to a global e-commerce strategy
Ultimately, the companies that succeed in global e-commerce understand that it is not simply an extension of domestic operations but a strategic discipline with a unique approach that pulls from every aspect of your business and positions you to sell effectively around the world.
As global e-commerce becomes more accessible and more competitive, the organisations that thrive will be those that treat global expansion with intention. A global e-commerce strategy executed with precision can provide a powerful growth engine. The businesses that master it will define the next era of international digital commerce.
