6 things to increase international sales

Okay, so here I went, posting a discussion on the Etsy forum: little did I know it would generate so many replies: 119 as I am typing this blog, but surely more by the time you read it.
Since in my last blog I raised a few questions, and the reaction on my post gave insight on what some people felt about the possible answers (at least from their opinion), let me share the results with everyone.
After all, crowdsourcing is in.

By the time I analized this, 40 US individuals had given their opinion on the issues I raised. Here are the results.
Of the 40, 35 said they did not have any real problems with buying from international stores, located outside of the USA. Thats a good score. The remaining five however, did have fundamental issues preventing them doing International orders. Of those 5, 1 reason was sort of patriotic, wanting to support US economy, one was due to the fact that international stores often only accept Paypal as a payment option, a service the customer did not want do signup with. The other reasons quoted for not wanting to shop international were of a more practical reason: costs. Either the cost of International shipping, or the costs of the goods themselves, due to the weaker dollar.

So, 5 out of 40 (12,5%) seems a good number. But we have to put this in perspective.
Don't forget that 62% of all 10 million Etsy users are US Based, according to this report, accounting for around 6,2 million customers, still amounts to three quarter of a million users that DON'T want to buy international. A sizable amount indeed.

But thats not all. In fact, only 17 (around 50% of potential international buyers) say there is no reason why they would not buy international. The other 50% list a number of apprehensions on buying from a non-US store. The graph  here shows what are the quoted reasons. 
The vast majority say the shipping cost and the shipping time are huge barriers when it comes to ordering from an international seller. Obviously, we want it, and we want it NOW is the key here, and adding another 10$ for postage is not a very enticing idea. The next big one is the cost of the goods, basically due to the low dollar exchange rate compared to the UK pound or Euro I guess. Well, the financial markets have recently partially done their best to reduce that difference ;-). 


So what can international sellers do about this?
I guess the following 6 pieces of advise can be distilled:


1) Make sure you have a clear shop policy, stating what international buyers can expect in terms of delivery times. Don't make promisses you cant keep, the shipment process is out of your hands, but a positively surprised customer is a better ambassador than a disappointed one. And be sure to put in your policies that any surplus on the actual shipping price will be reïmbursed, and adhere to it!


2) Minimize the transit times by clearly filling out custom forms, not including shipping costs in the declared value and (for US adresses) follow this link to the USPS zip locator for a correct addressing which seems to shorten the transit time (Thanks to Helen from Frenchsoul for this tip!)


3) Maybe, include part of the shipping rate into your item price. Now this is up for debate. Some will in no way want to do that, even if it is not to deter local buyers. On the other hand, since 62% of all potential buyers are US based (and international of course a lot more!), this might be a good strategy. After all, a lot of buyers will see a relative high shipping price upon checkout, and decide to cancel at that point.


4) Since most buyers can be found in the USA, make it a point to get good feedback from your international buyers, and maybe also ask them, in their feedback, to put something on the real shippping time. After all, uncertainty on it seems a large deterrant for many, even though some national US shipments also take some time.


5) Be sure to have a unique product. After all, if a US prospect buyer can choose between simmilar items, one international with potential shipping delays and high shipment costs, and one that doesn't, you can't blame them for choosing the latter.


6) Maybe most importantly: respond fast and clearly to all questions or remarks, gaining potential buyers' trust and, above all, get them to become repeating customers. 


Good luck selling!

Conversion

Yesterday, in Etsy's forum an interesting topic turned up, one that I had already been pondering on for some time. The topic was concerning the amount of views vs the amount of likes and the resulting amount of sales. In marketing terms this is called the Conversion rate.

The first few posts, all showed similar conversion rates of, between 100 and 250 views per sale (with around 20-30 likes per sale), but later more and more posts popped up where the views per sale ratio ended up between 500-2000.
Of course I quickly calculated my own and ended up on an average 650 views per sale, so well within the second tier.


Now, finding out those numbers is interesting, but the key question of course is how to INFLUENCE these numbers and in order to be able to do that, we need to know the cause.


There is where it becomes a bit tough. I don't have the time to make a scientific research on this, but a few observations could be made.


To people saying that external marketing (outside of Etsy) would be the cause: I don't think so. That would increase the amount of views, but not necessarily the view/sale ratio. In fact, it could be debated that it would reduce the ratio, since more views will dilute the sales made ratio (increasing sales but not in the same amount as the amount of views).


Of course a difference could be that the tagging of items was more specific, resulting in possible less views, but a higher conversion rate per view (ie more sales per view). That is to be investigated.

An other difference that caught my eye has to do with location. It quickly struck me that many of the shops with low conversion ratios (so high number of views per sale) were located outside of the US.
A quick look on Ebay shows that many stores don't even consider selling international. Its considered "a hassle", dangerous or just unneccesary. Whether that is a valid idea remains to be seen. However, I believe that the vast majority of Etsy buyers are US based. And I can immagine they would prefer to buy from US based stores, either because they are apprehensive of buying from non-US stores, they feel the shipping charges are too high or just for patriotic reasons.
Is there much that non-US sellers can do about this? Hardly. Just keep the shipping rates as low as possible (don't inflate), communicate in a timely and kind manner, and maybe in the stores policy or "about me" mention that many international orders have not caused any problems.
But that aside, I strongly believe Etsy can do something too: Increase they brand awareness outside of the US.
Maybe its a good idea to discuss this with your local Etsy representative?


Your views are highly appreciated.