Cross-border ecommerce gains traction; US, UK, Germany – top hotspots: report

These are the findings of a new global, online shopping research from Pitney Bowes, a provider of technology solutions. According to their 2014 Global Online Shopping Study, the US, UK and Germany are the most desirable online destinations for consumers to buy products and services online outside their own country.

According to research, shoppers in some of the countries, namely South Korea (21%), China (21%), India (15%) and Japan (15%) believe they can only make purchases from retailers in their own country. However, shoppers in other countries, including Australia (63%), Canada (54%) and Russia (54%) are willing to buy outside their nations borders.

The Pitney Bowes research also identifies several barriers to cross-border ecommerce, including high delivery costs (68%), additional fees at time of delivery such as duties and taxes (58%) and time taken to deliver (42%). Only 46% of those involved in the study believed it was safe to purchase a product online from a retailer based outside of their own country and 33% were not sure.

Other findings include:
• 68 percent of respondents cited price as the top reason why shoppers have purchased a product from an online retailer outside of their own country or would consider doing so.
• The US is by far the top country (70 percent) to be considered by shoppers who have purchased products online or would consider doing so. However, there was a major exception: Russia. While 54 percent of Russian respondents have made international ecommerce purchases, only 35 percent would purchase from the US.
• The ability to track an international order was most important to consumers in Brazil (41 percent), the US (40 percent) and Japan (39 percent), among those who have purchased products online from retailers in other countries or would consider doing so.

The 2014 Pitney Bowes Global Online Shopping Study was carried out online by ORC International and included almost 12,000 adults across 12 countries. Consumers were polled in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the UK and the US. The survey was conducted in August 2014.

Check out our Cross-border Ecommerce Research section here for more info on country-specific ecommerce facts & figures, preferred payment methods, risk and fraud, as well as ecommerce legislation & regulation for mature and emerging markets.