After the immense ecommerce boom during the pandemic, industry insiders predict yet another significant increase in online sales for the upcoming holiday season. The masses have arrived in the digital shopping age to stay, global selling in Q4 will be more important than ever as Amazon has recently conquered two more European markets with Poland and Sweden.
Today, Christine Lippmann, Ecommerce Marketing Specialist at InterCultural Elements shares her top tips for global selling in Q4. The following 6 steps show how retailers can best prevail against global competition while selling on international marketplaces during peak season.
Global selling in Q4
- Focus on your bestsellers and optimise listings
Analyse your products and the markets you sell in carefully. Which products have sold particularly well on which marketplace? Concentrate on your bestsellers and invest the time to adapt them exactly to the requirements of the respective marketplace in order to rank as high as possible in search results. Upload only this optimised selection of listings to new marketplaces, always keeping in mind the target group of the respective country, as well as cultural specifics.
- Provide localised product descriptions for your customers
Despite the multitude of products to choose from, buyers intuitively tend to choose ones they feel are sold by local sellers. Don’t underestimate the effect of a perfectly translated and localised description. Buyers want to avoid unpleasant surprises and, if a problem occurs, they want to be able to contact a person in their native language. Especially in a new market, immaculately translated listings gain trust even in unfamiliar brands or retailers. For less complex descriptions, a combination of machine translation with human review by a native translator is a cost-effective alternative.
- Increase visibility with the right marketing campaigns and enhanced brand content
Help your customers find your products! Selected bestsellers should be highlighted with marketing campaigns and enhanced brand content. In order to avoid delivery delays due to supply shortages, many customers will start buying gifts even earlier than usual this year. Use this to your advantage by investing in marketing campaigns before Black Friday, while prices are still significantly lower. By the time the critical holiday sales start, you can already benefit from positive recent customer reviews resulting in better product rankings.
- Make sure you understand your customers
To the extent that a native description increases customer confidence to buy your product in the first place, a smooth customer service experience keeps your account from being susceptible to suspensions. Well-maintained FAQ sections work great for unspecific issues that occur regularly. Keep them up-to-date and you’ll reduce the number of incoming requests significantly. It’s recommendable to outsource customer service in any language you can’t already offer in-house. Working with pay-as-you-go service providers allows you to use multilingual customer service agents cost-effectively and cover as many languages as you need. When engaging with external support, remember to get in contact with them early since capacity may be limited for customer service providers during the holiday season as well.
- Protect your Amazon account health
Reasons for account suspensions have become increasingly more arbitrary since the beginning of the pandemic. From alleged multiple accounts due to name overlaps, algorithm errors to hack attacks – sometimes the seller isn’t even at fault. Focus on the areas that are within your control. Keep an eye on your performance rates, check alerts and notifications regularly and don’t underestimate feedback ratings and delivery issues. Because many sellers underestimate the importance of their account health, cross border trade service provider InterCultural Elements has recently started offering a customised Account Health Check service with regular checks each business day. And in case a suspension does occur, account suspension appeals are already included in the subscription plans to ensure a quick reinstatement process.
- Rely on professional help in case of multilingual account suspensions
An account suspension can be particularly frustrating during peak season and cause severe damage to your business. The goal is to get your products back online as quickly as possible, and that can only be achieved with a professional appeal written in the language of the marketplace according to Amazons specific guidelines and regulations. Complaints, threats and pleas won’t work. Invest in professional help from e-commerce experts with many years of experience in solving difficult appeal cases. Every day you can’t sell costs you significantly more, especially during holiday season.
InterCultural Elements has been creating customisable international expansion strategies for retailers since 2007. The German-based service provider identifies profitable countries and marketplaces to target, manages your accounts and offers supporting services like multilingual customer service, translation, localisation and digital marketing. They also provide Amazon suspension appeals and the before mentioned account health checks in a variety of languages.
