If you want to grow your business, allowing for international orders is one of the best things you can do. Many people think it’s going to be very complicated. But it’s not too hard to expand into global delivery. If it’s something you want to do, you have to be prepared to make things easy for your customers. They need to be able to pay for their orders and receive them in a timely fashion. Start with the steps below to help you begin offering international when you take orders online.
Make International Payments Easy
If you want to allow for people to place orders all over the world, you need to think about payments. You won’t be able to offer the service if you can’t take international credit cards, for example. You need to find a system to make it easy for customers to pay for their orders by their preferred method. You might choose to use PayPal, allowing people to use their PayPal account or to input their card details. There are other tools you can use too so that your customers can pay quickly and easily. It also helps to include the ability to view product prices in different currencies.
Organize Your Shipping
Shipping internationally can seem difficult. But it shouldn’t be that hard to add to your usual mail. You can make it easier if you can deal with everything yourself, without having to take it all to the post office. You can look at the range of services offered by USPS or consider using a courier for some deliveries. Find out how to buy stamps online by going to http://www.onlinestamp.net/how-to-print-stamps-online/. It’s easier to attach postage to all your orders if you can print stamps whenever you need them. Don’t forget to consider customs, as well as delivery times. Your customers need to know how long they’ll have to wait for their orders.
Photo credit: VFS Digital Design
Consider Offering Other Languages
Using languages other than English on your website isn’t a necessity. Many people from around the world are happy to place their order in English. However, offering other languages could help to boost your sales. If you do decide to have the ability to translate your site, you’ll have to think about SEO too. A global SEO campaign can be difficult to master, but it will help people find your site. Look at where your orders are coming from to determine which languages you should offer.
Provide Excellent Customer Service
If you’re going to expand your delivery locations, you need to offer great customer service. People from all over the world could be asking about your website and their order. As with your site, you might need to consider offering customer service in more than one language. Dealing with time zones can present a challenge, so you might consider using email support as one of your primary methods.
Think carefully about offering international shipping before you implement it. It will be more successful if you take the time to plan and organize.