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~ CheckOut2TheWorld ~

Sarah Jennings, Frank van den Berg, Tarro Giannesi,
Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Salesupply UK Head of Marketplaces, Infinity
Oban International & Managing Director, InfinityBlue Blue Marketplaces
Marketplaces

nels and markets can be a huge undertaking, and potentially Frank van den Berg
very expensive. There is a danger of being so overwhelmed that Customer service experience: 74% of customers expect customer
it’s easier to kick the can down the road. service in their own language. A no-brainer. Choose a customer
service provider with offices in different countries to ensure the
For example, having your website available in other languages operators are fully tuned in to local culture.
and markets might sound like a straightforward case of
translating words on a page, but it goes well beyond that. You Find a partner that has offices in many countries so you can achieve
need to think about the whole experience, including elements a great customer experience while also operating economically.
like page layouts, imagery, buttons, currency options, payment
methods, user journeys and so on. Failure to do these things Delivery experience: Same day delivery is now offered by 51%
properly can undermine the trust and familiarity that are the of online retailers. At the same time 85% of customers prefer
foundation of good customer experience. free delivery over fast delivery. Once you have sufficient orders to
one country or region the balance of the assessment will fall to
So how do you do all this in a most cost-efficient way? having regional warehouses so that you can deliver quickly, at a
First, understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Have a tiered reasonable overall cost.
approach to your markets. Understand which markets are most
valuable and allocate your resources accordingly. Returns experience: Believe it or not but an effective return
policy is important for your conversion rate as 67% of Euro-
Second, as well as tiering your markets, cluster them. Look for pean online shoppers check the returns page before making
commonalities between markets and establish where you can a purchase. Organise a local return address, or free returns to
adopt similar approaches to drive efficiencies. Sometimes the your own warehouse to optimise the customer experience.
commonalities between markets will take place where you least
expect them – for example, countries geographically close to Tarro Giannesi
each other can behave very differently (see Europe as an ex- Customer experience is also important on marketplaces, but
ample!) whereas countries far apart can have similar customer you share you customers’ experience with the marketplace pro-
behaviours – e.g. Mexico and India. cesses. Product experience, delivery, return experience however
are for you to manage. Make sure it works for you. You will
Third, template your approaches where feasible, based on your benefit massively from positive reviews. In Edition 9 of Cross-
tiering/clustering. Don’t reinvent the wheel each time. Where border Magazine there is an insightful article of an interview
markets behave in similar ways, adapt similar approaches. with the Directors of Rarewaves, explaining how their com-
pany investment of the quality of their customer experience on
Fourthly, don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. It’s better marketplaces pays off handsomely. ••
to identify a few actions you can take and do what you can,
than do nothing. • For more insights around customer experience and quantification
of theses benefits on customer experience please contact info@
Fifthly, automate where possible. There are plenty of marketing checkout2theworld.com or [email protected] for a copy of E-commerce
automation tools available. Use them. Marketing emails at dif- Customer Service and Fulfillment whitepapers.
ferent stages of the user journey is an obvious example.

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