Most people who have begun trading in e-commerce find that the business respects no borders and sooner or later, most of them will have at least some cross border ecommerce trading as part of their annual income. This has been borne out in an international study by consumer research company Neilsen who found that 57% of online respondents had made an online purchase in the last 6 months from an overseas online retailer. The research was large scale, polling 13,000 people in 26 countries so will be a lot more representative than many studies we report on at Apex Insight.
A statement from the company about the research concluded, “E-Commerce is going mobile and innovative technology is allowing consumers around the world unprecedented access to products,… Consumers are no longer limited to the product selection at their local store or even in their own country.”
Nielsen believed that “the continued growth of connected commerce is inevitable”, it also found that “many regions still face significant infrastructure challenges, including low Internet penetration, high access costs and unreliable connections”.
Nielsen added: “Thirty-two percent of online survey respondents say their Internet connection is not stable enough to make them comfortable buying online. In these markets, mobile devices have been critical to e-commerce growth, bringing many new and underserved customers online—and their importance will only continue to grow.”
Cross border ecommerce is growing particularly in Europe and on the Indian subcontinent, where trade is improving between neighbouring countries. The Neilsen study continued,: “Consumers are increasingly expanding their shopping to online retailers outside their geographic region.
“Nearly three-quarters of Indian respondents who shopped online in the past six months say they purchased items from an overseas retailer (74%)—a trend that extends beyond the developing world.
“Roughly two-thirds of Western European respondents say they purchased goods from an overseas retailer, including 79% in Italy—the highest percentage in the study—and 73% in Germany.”