An energy drink company ran an ad with three images placed side by side. The first image showed a tired person in the hot sun, the second showed their energy drink, and the third showed the previously tired person now energized and running*
The ad was successful in Western countries because the communication was clear – our drink gives you energy when you are tired and riding on that success, they replicated the ad in Arabic countries but it was a dismal failure.
Why did this happen?
The rest of the world reads from left to right, but Arabic readers read from right to left. So, when other countries read the ad as intended, the Arabic customers read it backward as an energized person becoming tired after taking the energy drink. No way they’re buying such a drink!
- Left to right: Our drink gives you energy when you’re tired.
- Right to left: Our drink makes you weak when you’re energized
You can’t fault this company for trying to expand to other markets, albeit blindly. Cross-border selling is silently becoming one of the best ways to tap into the lucrative international market and establish a company as market leaders. As more businesses enter the space, the need to develop and implement a successful strategy that accommodates the peculiarity of each country becomes more critical.
Like other business models, cross-border selling has its challenges, and any brand worth its salt must understand and incorporate appropriate solutions to tackle them.
Exchange rates, logistics, regulations, shipping, localization, market-specific product details, and more are a few I can think of now, and you can bet there are many more.
First things first
The first task for anyone drawing up a cross-border eCommerce strategy is to create an omnichannel eCommerce framework that enables a unified and personalized shopping experience across all online and offline marketing platforms.
Your customer may first encounter your product via your Twitter post and make first contact with you on Instagram or Facebook before finally placing an order on your website. On paper, it would look like a simple website purchase but what really happened was that you were ready for them and gave a unified experience across all your channels.
Your omnichannel eCommerce framework must also include multi-channel and multi-lingual customer service through support agents empowered with the right technology.
Best Seller? Show it.
Olutaja ti o dara julo. If you don’t understand that phrase (which means “best seller”), you’re probably not one of the 44.5 million Yoruba language speakers from Southwestern Nigeria and that’s okay. What is not okay – assuming you’re indeed a best seller is to fail to add this tag to your product profile when launching in the region since that is guaranteed to make you stand out and attract customers that will drive revenue for your business. This also applies to special features, local goals, visions and other unique identifiers that gives you an edge over the competition.
Since localized content might have to be modified to speak to different audiences, you must follow a rigid blueprint to preserve brand authenticity. The message and tone may differ, but the underlying strategy should seldom change. I say “seldom” and not “never” because the strategies that facilitate great results today can become stumbling blocks with the introduction of new trends tomorrow.
Digital Transformation + eCommerce = Success
In case you’re still not sure where to begin with your cross-border strategy, investigating digital transformation trends will be helpful to find the necessary solutions required to get your plans on track. Once the desired business outcome has been identified, deploying the right tech to get you there becomes the easy part.
Once the desired business outcome has been identified, deploying the right tech to get you there becomes the easy part.
One of Asia’s largest integrated eCommerce platforms shared its digital transformation success story by partnering with a global cloud communications platform provider that had an established presence in the region. They recorded remarkable success by deploying an omnichannel customer experience and real-time support solution that produced a 10% increase in their lead conversation rate and a 76% increase in leads confirming appointments. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty impressive. Read the full story here.
Using digital transformation to address communication challenges for your cross-border eCommerce business doesn’t have to be unnecessarily complex. Experts like me have devoted time and resources to understanding and making adoption as seamless as reasonably possible and are always happy to help anyone get it right.
Feel free to reach out to explore the best track that suits your business.
The world is your customer base.