Online purchases currently represent over USD 1 trillion per year and forecasted to nearly double by 2019, according to the “Seizing The Cross-Border Opportunity” report issued by the market research company Forrester Research and commissioned by FedEx logistics company. A significant part of ecommerce shopping globally involves cross-border shipments.
82% of global respondents report making an online purchase from a merchant outside their home country. These rates vary minimally across regions from a high of 90% of Canadians reporting purchasing cross-border compared to a low of 59% of Japanese. On average, these customers reported spending about USD 300 on cross-border items a year.
Primary online shopping destinations are the US, China and the UK. While shoppers indicated purchasing cross-border from all 17 international markets included in the study, the US, China and the UK were the top 3 exporters of online purchases. 91% of Canadians who responded, admitted on making their cross-border purchases from the US, with Latin American shoppers sourcing from the US as well, including 68% of Brazilians. Europeans have a tendency to order within the EU, although UK businesses ship primarily to the US and Australia. Shoppers in Japan and Korea stated they purchase more frequently from the US than they do from their APAC neighbors.
Cross-border shoppers prefer to purchase from major multi-brand retailers and global online marketplaces. In fact, the majority of respondents in every country surveyed ranked major multi-brand online retailers or marketplaces as their first choice out of five business types for cross-border purchases. The findings indicate an effective way for SME retailers to enter the global arena is through online marketplaces.
Duties and taxes curb cross-border activity. While shipping cost and delivery time are top of mind with shoppers, over a third of global respondents cited high duties/taxes as a concern for cross-border shopping. The impact of duties and taxes was even more pronounced when researchers explored creating a standard duty free threshold. If all online purchases under USD 200 USD (localised) were duty free, 56% of global respondents would increase their cross-border shopping.
Regionally, the hypothetical limit had the greatest impact on Latin American shoppers, with 80% of those respondents predicting an increase in their cross-border shopping. At the country level, 71% of respondents in India and 80% respondents in China indicated the same.
The study includes over 9000 respondents in 17 countries and territories, as well as small-and-medium businesses with cross-border operations.
Check out our Cross-border Ecommerce Research section here for more info on country-specific ecommerce facts and figures, preferred payment methods, risk and fraud, as well as ecommerce legislation and regulation for mature and emerging markets.
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