Is Commerce growth just a U.S. phenomenon? Not by a long shot. Online commerce is growing in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
According to eMarketer, European online sales in key markets—Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the UK—will grow an average of 12% annually between 2012 and 2017, to reach €170 billion ($217B) by 2017. In the United Kingdom, e-commerce will increase approximately 11.5% in 2013, to 87B pounds ($138.0B) from 78B pounds ($123.7B), from a study by Capgemini and U.K. e-retail association Interactive Media in Retail Group.
Over in Latin America, B2C ecommerce is still in its infancy, with sales reaching only $36.8B this year. However, online shopping is showing signs of accelerating growth. More than half of Latin America’s e-commerce sales come from online buyers in Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, and it is expected that Brazil will continue to record double-digit increases through 2014, according to eMarketer.
B2C ecommerce sales in Asia-Pacific will grow more than 30% in 2013 vs 12.2% in North America, from eMarketer. Analysys International estimates that e-commerce sales in China are due to more than triple during the coming three years. As well, India’s B2C e-commerce market is likely to double in size to more than $3B within three years, and could grow to reach $15B by 2017, based on Matrix Partners India research.
So, what are you to do? First, ensure that your e-commerce platform allows you to maintain and manage multiple sites. Consider using multisite capabilities to support your different geographies and various brand sites, all while sharing assets between them. Create one product catalog but enable people in certain geographies or countries to only see their appropriate product catalog content.
Secondly, make sure your commerce platform can handle multiple currencies and languages. And that includes site promotions and navigation. Look for a commerce solution that places that control with the business user so that can quickly respond to geo-specific shifts and local competitors.
Hopefully that post gives you food for thought that commerce is bigger than your local market and even continent. And gives you pause to think that you have to think global in all of your commerce activities.
