You’re online. You’ve setup a great e-commerce site. And you want to sell more of your products overseas. Maybe it’s to China where there could be “half a billion” opportunities. Or Europe. Or South America. Financing options, led by the Export-Import Bank and others like HSBC are plentiful. TheU.S. Government and the Small Business administration have both developed comprehensive sites with tons of resources to help businesses, big and small, to export their products to overseas customers. In other words, there are plenty of resources available to help you.
But here’s the most important thing when selling your products online to overseas customers: you’ve got to focus on the right market. A miscalculation could be costly, or even fatal if you bet on the wrong place. It’s a big world. And you’re not going to be able to cover it all. So it’s likely you’ll have to do it one market at a time.
Last week, AVG, who makes business, personal and mobile security products, put together this interesting infographic about the Internet, e-commerce and online markets in other countries. Full disclosure: AVG is a client of my company. I also blog on their website. I took some time to look at this infographic and learned a few things. Here are a few examples.
1. Mobile devices are hugely popular in the U.S., but not as much as you think. In fact, despite their huge popularity, most Internet pages in the U.S. (87%) are still overwhelmingly viewed through desktop computers. Want to design a marketing campaign or sell your products online where mobile views are more popular? Consider India or South Korea, where 55% and 33% of online usage respectively goes through mobile devices. France, Germany, Italy and Russia lag far behind.Last week, AVG, who makes business, personal and mobile security products, put together this interesting infographic about the Internet, e-commerce and online markets in other countries. Full disclosure: AVG is a client of my company. I also blog on their website. I took some time to look at this infographic and learned a few things. Here are a few examples.
2. Depending on where you sell, Facebook FB -0.23% is not necessarily the king of social media. In fact, it’s not even the leading social media outlet in China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. According to the AVG survey China’s QZone has the biggest number of social media users per country with 190 million and VK (originally VKontakte) has over 100 million users in Russia. Cyworld is South Korea’s most popular social network. And you thought it was challenging enough to get people to engage on Facebook!
3 – Google GOOG +0.56% is not the search engine market leader everywhere. OK, in just about every county it dominates. But not as much as you may think. In Russia, for example, just 55% of searches go through Google and in Japan it’s 66% (this number is more than 90% in most western countries). In reality, if you want online users in China to be able to find your products you’ll need to be proficient on Baidu. Depending on where in the world you sell, your search optimization strategy may need to change. And where is Google most popular? Brazil!
4 – Some countries are doing work faster online. For example, the AVG analysis showed that South Korea and Japan have the fastest average download speeds, with South Africa and India having the slowest. Online buyers in England, Germany, and Russia have faster download speeds than the U.S. Browsing in China and Australia are significantly slower. For those countries where the Internet is slower, a quicker and easier buying process, with less graphics and downloads, will be important. How quick and easy is it to buy products from your website?
5 – Australia has the most online users. You’d think with all that sun and potential for adventure, most Australians would be outside chasing kangaroos and bungee jumping. But according to AVG’s survey, 88.8% of Australians are online, compared to 78% in the U.S., 58% in Italy and 11% in India. Seems like a good market to sell your wares. Just be careful of their slow download speeds (see 4 above).
6. The U.S. is still the biggest online market in the world. The potential size of the American online market (GDP per head times by the number of online users) is estimated at $11.3 trillion. In second place is Japan with an estimated potential of $3.35 trillion, followed by China who with all its economic power and population has a potential of $3.16 trillion – less than third of the U.S. So to get the biggest bang from your online buck it may make sense to focus on those three countries. The smallest potential online markets are in India ($266 billion), Saudi Arabia ($233 billion) and Indonesia ($131 billion).
The takeaway? Know your market. You can’t be everything to everyone. And you probably don’t have the resources to make the kind of investment you want everywhere. To really make an impact overseas you’ll need to focus on those markets that will generate the biggest return for your investment. And you better get to know the social engine and search marketing tools that are most popular in those markets if you want to reach as many customers as possible.
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