Launching an e-commerce business abroad: it's not rocket science if you have the right support!

Before you get started, the first - and most important - question to answer is whether there is commercial potential for your products and services. 

The first tip to help you find out if there is an appetite is to look at the visitors to your site. What is the geographical origin of Internet users interested in your offer? To find out, the most common (and certainly the most popular) tool is Google Analytics. There are other solutions, such as AT Internet or IBM Digital Analytics. This will give you an idea of the country or countries in which you are developing. 

To understand the contours of your target market, market research and consumer panels are essential: political and economic framework, market size, administrative and legal constraints... Everything is covered, including consumer and purchasing habits. Depending on the country, certain products or offers may not be of interest to consumers, or may even be banned. One example: to be marketed in China, a cosmetic product must have been tested on animals, which is a no-no in Europe... 

Local customs services can provide all the information you need to check the regulations in force. BpiFrance (Banque Publique d'Investissement) and Business France also offer schemes to help e-tailers export, thanks to their knowledge of the markets, their international network, as well as funding assistance and regulatory expertise.

You need to position yourself against your competitors in their own market, and analyse the keys to their success. There are a few simple tools you can use to dissect online strategies. First of all, you can analyse website traffic and the way in which your competitors are reaching their targets, using SimilarWeb or SEMRush: SEO, SEA SEM, emailing, etc. The communication strategy also enables you to see which channel is effective: should you have a blog or focus all your efforts on social networks? A tool like Mention gives a detailed picture of the community targeted by your competitors, while measuring their influence. 
 
As with opening a physical shop, you'll need to analyse the prices charged so that you can offer your international e-buyers the right price. What's at stake? Attracting them and, above all, building their loyalty. This is especially true in the case of e-commerce: building loyalty is more difficult because there is no physical contact with your customers. Tools such as Pricing Lab and Optimus Price allow you to monitor the prices charged by your competitors, helping you to adjust yours.

How do you choose your sales channels? Is a marketplace a direct competitor to your online shop or a growth lever? It all depends on the habits of e-shoppers. In the United States, Amazon is the site most used by online shoppers. In China, Alibaba with its marketplace Tmall is the undisputed leader, and in Japan, Rakuten. 
 
The main advantages of marketplaces: selling larger volumes and saving money.  
Negative point: competition is much tougher and it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. If you have a long range of products, the marketplace may be a good place to start, testing the market on a limited number of items. You can also benefit from à la carte services on certain marketplaces, such as Amazon and Ebay: certain stages are the contractual responsibility of the marketplaces, while other operational or logistical processes remain under the control of the e-retailer. 
 
On the other hand, if you provide an exclusive service or product, it is more interesting to approach the market via your own site, in order to maintain a high level of personalisation and customer relations. You will need to adapt your site to your target countries, which means adapting your offer, your overall sales proposition, and therefore your services.

• If you want to offer an online shop dedicated to a specific market, you can adopt a local domain name. If you want to open up your site more widely, a '.com' extension is more appropriate. 
• Developing in a market that is not your native market requires expertise in search engine optimisation, and therefore an agency specialising in SEO and/or SEA strategy. 
• To improve personalisation and therefore the e-buyer experience, you will need to (re)work your cookies.