The pandemic that started a year ago has restricted our leisure activities and shopping in physical shops. This has undoubtedly contributed to the growth of international e-commerce. The average value of cross-border online purchases globally amounts to almost EUR 121, which is 17% more compared to domestic shopping. This may become a great motivation for businesses to step into the international e-commerce market.
If the headline caught your attention, you may have already started thinking of growing your ecommerce business internationally, whilst expanding your operations. Product delivery is an integral part of international e-commerce and contributes to the expansion of every business involved, but it does come with a learning curve as with any new endeavour. So what should you do if internal doubts are still holding you back from taking action?
From the get-go everything may appear very difficult, overwhelming even, but with guidance rest assured you will be on your way to international shipping in no time. With the first three steps described below we will try to inspire and to show you that everything can be much easier than it seems. So let’s begin!
Understand your customer
When choosing the direction of international expansion, it is not sufficient to blindly put the finger on the map. When faced with hesitation as to where to expand to first, pay attention to the indicators of the current demand for your products. To this end you should perform an analysis of your e-shop orders. Analyzing your e-shop data could show you hints as to which demographic cohort and which countries may already be showing interest in your products.
Do not give up if the data analysis only shows interest in your products from shoppers in your own country—it is normal and it is a good start. Try to solicit feedback from your existing customers to project scalability based on your existing client trates—if you have managed to attract the attention of the initial client base, you will be able to further expand it.
Just put on your ‘researcher hat’—and, having evaluated your current customer trends, spend some time projecting and learning about their interests, traditions, and lifestyle of potential customers in other countries. Ask questions—an insider’s look at other markets will reveal where your products will get most attention.
Once you responsibly choose the countries where your products may have potential for success—we have no doubt that you will find these countries on our Venipak Global list, which covers over 212 countries worldwide. Our international parcel delivery service ensures smooth parcel delivery for e-commerce shippers to both customer homes and pick-up points in the Baltic states.
“When providing international parcel delivery services we are very attentive to our client needs, doing our best to meet the individual requirements of e-commerce businesses, which we always try to execute following top quality delivery standards. For example, in addition to the industry standard “Economy” ground shipping services (with expected 3-7 day door-to-door delivery via ground transportation), we also offer “Express” parcel delivery services for urgent shipments (expected 2-3 day door-to-door delivery via air transport) regardless of where your customer may be located.
Justas Šablinskas, General Manager of Venipak
Taxes and charges everywhere you look
Taxes, levies, duties, charges, and many similar words typically imply additional costs. Could it be that these terms are causing anxiety and preventing you from the potential launch of international business endeavours ? If so, let us try to step into this “dark forest” together. It may not be as dim and scary as you might think.
Before launching international deliveries, the shipper must take into account the customs duties of the destination country and ensure that the recipient would not have any problems with import procedures. When sending a parcel with Venipak, the company’s partners take care of the customs clearance on the shipper’s and recipient’s behalf. Therefore, the customs clearance is performed on behalf of the recipient on the receiving end of the delivery, with customs cleared everything is made ready for the convenient delivery.
The situation with import taxes is similarly simpler than it may seem—taxes are paid by either the shipper or the recipient depending on the conditions specified in the consignment note enclosed with the shipment. The accurate information in the consignment note provided by the shipper ensures smoother customs clearance and package delivery.
“To prevent additional service fees, we offer flexible pricing based on client capacity and needs. Similarly, if the shipper needs additional insurance we suggest trusted partner services that offer reasonably priced insurance at only 1% of shipment value, which can be helpful in mitigating any potential unexpected issues.”
Justas Šablinskas, General Manager of Venipak
Technologies bringing together businesses, recipients and delivery service providers
At Venipak, we are on a constant lookout for new opportunities and tech integrations that would help our business clients with parcel shipment—as such, we have developed several Venipak delivery modules to streamline service convenience. These modules simplify integration processes for e-shops and allow the use of Venipak delivery plugins on the most popular e-commerce platforms.
What are these modules and plugins? The new Venipak plugins assure the smooth performance of the entire parcel shipping process—from efficient integration of orders between the e-shop and the Venipak parcel system to the eventual delivery of the parcel. That said, Venipak delivery modules are easily integrated with such e-shop platforms as Shopify, OpenCart, WooCommerce, Magento, Prestashop, and Verskis.lt. You can download the documentation for each module here.
“Overall, we seek to streamline the international parcel shipping process, so it would not become burdensome to either the e-commerce business or the buyer. We regularly upgrade our system, provide flexible selection of delivery pricing and maximum weight ranges, and automatically streamline the shipment registration for the courier on behalf of both parties of the transaction. Moreover, we also perform independent quality assurance of manifest and labels printing that goes along with the parcel.”
Justas Šablinskas, General Manager of Venipak
Final note
Do not be afraid to expand the reach of your operations and accept this as a new growth opportunity for your business in the international market. By taking a small step toward international trade every day, you will see that the entire process is much easier than you may have anticipated. We sincerely hope that the basic steps of how to kick off international shipping discussed above will encourage you.
…If, however, you feel more comfortable working with direct assistance, you can always contact our Venipak team who’d be happy to offer guidance on all processes mentioned above and more. It is easier to take on the new challenges together!
