85% of all sales on Fruugo are cross-border

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Many sellers dip their first toe in cross border trade by listing on European marketplaces but that’s going to be more complex from the 1st of January 2021, regardless whether the EU manage to agree a deal with the UK once the transition agreement expires on the 31st of December. Nonetheless, whether we get a deal or not, cross border trade will remain important. However one marketplace turns the dial all the way up to 11 when it comes to cross border trade and that’s Fruugo. I was somewhat astounded to learn that 85% of all sales on Fruugo are cross-border.

Today we highlight a range of businesses across a wide range of verticals such as beauty, fashion, gardening, glamping and the consistent story is that they have been able maximise sales during the difficult lockdown period through the cross-border trading Fruugo facilitates.

Having a partner which handles many of the complexities such as translation, currency conversion and VAT obligations makes selling overseas much simpler. Plus, one of the key advantages of Fruugo is that they promote your products on search engines and so often attract an entirely different set of consumers compared to those who start their shopping journey on marketplaces.

If after reading the experiences below you’d like to sign up to sell on Fruugo, you can do so here.

Retailers on Fruugo who are cross-border winners

Charles Bentley

Examples include Charles Bentley, a Midlands-based home and gardening retailer founded in 1860 who we have written about before – they usually sell their products via garden centres and DIY stores but have been able to sell hundreds of thousands of pounds of their products in the last month alone to customers all over the world – capitalising on the consumer trend for a growing interest in gardening through lockdown.

The Trimming Shop

Similarly, The Trimming Shop, a Craft Products Specialist which joined Fruugo in January 2020 have seen their store in Essex now receiving over £20,000 of orders per week from Fruugo with 90% of those sales shipping to customers outside the UK, particularly Belgium, the USA and Canada.

123 Hair & Beauty

Clare Novak is the proud founder of 123 Hair & Beauty, an online retailer of hair and beauty products. While she still runs the business out of Lancashire, a key part of its success is the amount of sales generated internationally, with people across the world purchasing fragrances, hair products and make up through its own website and other marketplaces such as Fruugo. By listing their products in all markets available on the Fruugo platform across North America, Europe and Asia, 123 Hair & Beauty has seen an estimated 45% increase in sales and we now help facilitate the majority of its cross-border commerce.

“Where other marketplaces make it difficult to speak to actual people, Fruugo works in partnership with us to help make things run smoother for everyone involved and fundamentally grow our business! It’s actually a refreshing way to do business with a marketplace”
– Clare Nova, founder, 123 Hair & Beauty

Bell Tent Boutique

With backyard glamping and staycations in popular demand across Europe due to COVID restrictions, Bell Tent Boutique was able to use Fruugo to sell its products to customers across the continent without having to deal with the complexity of translations and local marketing campaigns. As a result, the business experienced a sales surge over the lockdown period!

“While we have localised sites available in German, French, Italian and Spanish, Fruugo lets us expand our reach to the other European markets without having to deal with the complexity of translations and local marketing campaigns. Our sales on Fruugo are up over 400% year on year. That was mostly driven by growth in sales from Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland and Norway where sales have increased by well over ten times.”
– Nick Harver Morley, co-founder, Bell Tent Boutique

Boolavard

As COVID-19 continues to affect our everyday lives, Boolavard, home of vintage inspired, retro and stylish products, is using its resources to help start manufacturing reusable cotton fabric face coverings.

The retailer based in Newark, Nottinghamshire, used Fruugo to promote and sell its face coverings, and the large demand meant their product rose into the Fruugo best sellers list, due in large part to a major increase in cross-border sales. In the last three weeks they have sold thousands of units of face coverings with 35% of their sales coming from Australia, 39% from Denmark and 15% from New Zealand – highlighting how our platform is helping tie smaller merchants with global consumer demand. Boolavard has now seen an increase of over 590% in their sales on Fruugo since the 20th July 2020, and has increased brand awareness on both a local and worldwide scale.

“As an online retailer, being able to reach consumers across the world is key to not only maintain but also grow sales, especially in the current climate. For a business like Boolavard using online marketplaces is key to achieving this, as we can focus on the marketing and sales strategy and get assistance with translations, currency conversions, monitoring of VATs and much more. Thanks to Fruugo we have been able to scale up our international trading seamlessly, and benefit from the global demand for items such as face masks which has skyrocketed since March.”
– Andrew Gorman, director, Boolavard

Starstills

Starstills are an online retailer of licensed movie and celebrity posters, photos and cardboard cut-outs and saw sales double on Fruugo from 2018 to 2019, and are on course to boost sales even further in 2020.

Since its launch in 2008, Starstills has gone from strength to strength in the UK, as well as overseas, where it has seen demand for its products continuously rise. To simplify cross-border trading, Starstills decided to Fruugo in 2014, as they were able to help list them products across all of Fruugo’s regional sites via a single product feed.

By localising product listings across multi-national sites, Starstills has been able to grow sales in new markets from the moment it joined Fruugo, with 2018 and 2019 being especially strong due in large part to Fruugo assistance with promotional activity and the expansion of their territorial coverage.

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