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~ Karhu ~

developing very quickly all over the world. When we ask of orders, online sellers immediately can tell an order will – at
what changes we can expect soon, Van den Berg is firm in least partially – be returned.
his statement: “Customer experience will remain particularly
important. Every brand and retailer is looking into ways Stepping across borders
to make the online shopping experience for its customers Karhu has gathered first-hand experience over many years
even better. We do that, too. Now, we are considering a when it comes to cross-border entrepreneurship. Van
diary-functionality on our website, allowing the consumer den Berg has some advice for retailers with cross-border
to make an appointment in a local brick-and-mortar store. ambitions: “Be as local as possible,” he starts. “However,
This way, we both support our retailers and ourselves. At the long before you get to that point, it is important to be
same time, our webshop offers many ways to improve the prepared when you enter a market. Be selective in your
experience. What if we made our product experts available via choice of warehouse. To what countries do you want to ship
the website for Q&A? For example, using live video chat and your products? And is your warehouse partner capable of
engaging face-to-face with consumers online. And what to do doing this? If not, this can be a major bug in your cross-
with sizes? This is something many fashion brands and sellers border ambitions. Make sure you or your warehouse partner
struggle with. How can you help consumers find their best has the cross-border, local experience, and knowhow. If your
fit? The one who makes this work will no doubt see the results most important target audience is in Mexico, make sure your
in the declining amount of returns.” warehouse partner knows all about shipping to this country.
This is just as important closer to home. Only when you and
For fashion, the high amount of returns due to incorrect or your partners know what you are doing can you offer natural
unfitting sizes is as old as e-commerce. No one size fits all service standards as they are set today. And only then you
specs in different countries. How do you make sizes work in can work on even higher standards,” he concludes. ••
multiple languages with multiple sizing systems? “Even with
high-end technology, it is not easy to solve this,” illustrates
Van den Berg. “At the moment, we show US sizes, but on our
new platform, we want to work with a size conversion table to
show the correct size on the right localised page. This will be
beneficial, especially in European countries where consumers
are used to returning fashion items a lot more than in, say,
the USA. In Europe, it is much more common to order the
same product in multiple sizes or colours. With these kinds

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