Scaling a Global Ecommerce Business: Three Keys from $100M+ Enterprises

Scaling a Global Ecommerce Business: Three Keys from $100M+ Enterprises
  • 100%的咕噜咕噜叫e leans on the Shopify API to integrate inventory, product information, and digital resources into a custom ERP
  • Rebecca Minkoff offers comprehensive multi-location options, allowing shoppers more than 70 currency choices
  • Nanoleaf customers faced big tariffs until Nanoleaf used Shopify Plus to set up international storefronts with local warehousing

The largest consumer retailers in the world share many things, not least among them standout products, leadership, and execution.

Wrapped in all that, for the best to truly succeed, is aninternational ecommercestrategy that removes logistics hurdles, smooths the international shopping experience, and makes global buying feel more like local shopping.

Total worldwide sales for global ecommerce business

Data compiled withinThe Global Ecommerce Playbook

From ERP integrations to multi-currency selectors and international warehousing, here are three keys from100%的咕噜咕噜叫e,Rebecca Minkoff, andNanoleaf— three enterprises with a combined annual revenue above $100 million — to scale your global ecommerce business.

ERP Integrations

100%的咕噜咕噜叫e was a natural cosmetics company on a rocket ship: a start-up began in a California farmhouse, more than a dozen retail locations, and ecommerce stores in five countries.

It was great. It was complex. It required a solution. To better manage its intricate operations, 100% Pure leaned on the Shopify API to create a collection of custom connections that allowed it to easily sync:

  • Inventory
  • Product information
  • Digital resources

In one place, the company found it could log-in, update each of its digital and physical properties, and completely integrate and assemble nearly its entire commerce backend.

Inventory levels would automatically update once an order was fulfilled. Product descriptions would sync across any international store or retail location. Even new product images could go out in a snap to every relevant page they needed to appear on.

“I just hit the sync button and it’s done,” says Quan Nguyen, 100% Pure’s then vice president of technology. “We save so much time being able to sync everything across multiple stores.”

100%的咕噜咕噜叫e uses multiple storefronts to help save its customers sky-high shipping fees on the backend.

Four of 100% Pure’s international storefronts: US, Germany, South Africa, and Australia

Currency Selectors

Few brands in fashion carry the cachet ofRebecca Minkoff, where runway style andsmart technologyhave joined to create an haute couture line unlike many of its contemporaries.

But with such a heavyweight ecommerce presence, Rebecca Minkoff could not truly go global unless it featured the right user experience to go alongside it.

Shopping is made seamless with multiple currency options, both for customers to view while browsing and also to consider when checking out.

Rebecca Minkoff complements its global reach with a currency selector that supports more than 100 countries and over 70 currencies.

Nearly any currency in the world is available to shop through on Rebecca Minkoff's sites.

The simple drop-down bar says it all: shoppers can easily select their shipping destination and preferred currency, and the rest is as they know it. True global ecommerce, but with the intimacy and familiarity of local web shopping.

For more on multi-currency and local payment methods …

Take a look at two of the exciting product announcements we made earlier this month at Shopify Unite:

Scaling A Global Ecommerce Business: Three Keys From $100M+ Enterprises

Fulfillment Solutions

Nanoleafwas a hit, the kind of viral, gotta-have product that spreads through the retail world like wildfire.

But as it grew, the LED light maker noticed a hitch. Its global audience loved their orders, but many of Nanoleaf’s international customers were being dinged by obscene taxes, tariffs, and additional courier fees the retailer hadn’t foreseen.

“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, we need to do better internationally so our customers aren’t being surprised with unexpected taxes and fees at their doorstep,’” says Paul Austin-Menear, Nanoleaf’s director of digital strategy. “If it was me, I’d be mad, too.”

It has become a growing pain felt by fast-growing merchants expanding across the globe.

To solve its hiccup, Nanoleaf revamped its international supply chain, logistics, and fulfillment strategies by upgrading to Shopify Plus, where it set up global storefronts fed by strategically-located warehouses.

Not only did the new global storefronts solve many shipping and tariff headaches, but shoppers could also now checkout in their own currencies, in their native language, often with local deliveries that were faster and less expensive than their previous international providers.

Scaling A Global Ecommerce Business: Three Keys From $100M+ Enterprises

Nanoleaf’s international storefront asks customers to select their location for the best pricing and fastest shipping options

Scaling A Global Ecommerce Business: Three Keys From $100M+ Enterprises

If the wrong location is selected, Nanoleaf’s sites recognize this and suggest a different shop

Scaling A Global Ecommerce Business: Three Keys From $100M+ Enterprises

Visitors can also self-select their preferred location and currency at any point in their online journey

“我们的动机很简单:对cust更好一些omer every single day,” says Austin-Menear. “We need to offer customers a better experience and get them their orders in a timely manner, and that’s what our international storefronts and warehouses allow us to do.”

Want help expanding your global ecommerce business?

That’s exactly why we created a step-by-step framework to grow beyond borders:The Global Ecommerce Playbook.

Sample pages from The Global Ecommerce Playbook

关于作者

Jason Buckland

Jason Buckland is a content marketing manager at Shopify Plus. His feature writing has appeared in the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Playboy, Time, the Toronto Star, and elsewhere.