Tamebay’s recent White Paper, “Harnessing volatility: maximising profitability on international ecommerce sales” reveals the results of a survey of Tamebay readers and which countries online retailers export to.
Sellers surveyed were predominantly based within the UK and over 40% of participants have a turnover of more than one million pounds per annum.
Countries online retailers export to
Somewhat unsurprisingly, France (84%) and Germany (81%) are the two most popular destinations for retailers to export to. What is unexpected is that more retailers export to Italy (73%) than to the USA (70%). Whilst Italy is within the EU (and currently Britain still is), the country has a reputation for being tricky to ship to with parcel often being delayed or going missing. It may be a reflection of past difficulties that only 24% of retailers surveyed consider Italy to be a priority for expanding their business to over the next two years.
Australia (62%) and Canada (50%) are the next countries that retailers actively export to and Asia with Japan (34%), China (16%) and India (14%) are traditionally difficult countries to break into but have a significant number of retailers already actively trading in.
Are you an atypical reader according to the survey results? Are the countries you export to aligned with your fellow sellers or have you seen success in other countries around the world?
You’ll find more information regarding the survey results in the White Paper which was produced in conjunction with international currency experts Currencies Direct. As well as revealing where sellers already export to and their top target territories to expand their international sales, the white paper also explores the barriers to cross border trade and potential solutions, a case study with Tamebay reader Julius Oliveti of Gizmo Deals, and how the impact of Brexit is already impacting European trade.
2 Responses
Very surprised to see that 50% of the retailers surveyed export to Canada given that the duty threshold is so low (CAD $20) and the delivery lead-time when shipped via Royal Mail seems to take much longer than most ROW countries. (Approx 10-20 days to Canada vs 8-10 to US/Australia).
We were selling in the clothing category on Amazon Canada (CAD $10k per month) but recently got suspended due to the high level of buyer A-Z claims. The main reason for the claims were the customers having to pay duties on their orders.
Upon looking further into this, Amazon require the seller to deliver duty paid if they are actively listing on a foreign marketplace. Eg UK seller listing items on Amazon.CA and a Canadian customer orders the item then the seller must deliver with all duties and taxes paid.
We did explore FBA however it is very expensive to ship cartons to an Amazon warehouse in Canada and you end up having to pay the full duty/GST upon the stock entering Canada before you sell an item.
Does anyone on here want to share a positive experience of exporting to Canada?
Waste of time..