In their survey, DHL Express estimates a cross-border retail volume increase at an annual rate of 25 percent from today until 2020. The findings are based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted by a global consultancy firm and more than 1,800 responses to a survey retailers and manufacturers in six countries took part in.
DHL’s main message is that more retailers should have the courage to go global instead of offering their products only in local or national regional. New figures now presented by the integrator
in their report - The 21st Century Spice Trade: A Guide to the Cross-Border E-Commerce Opportunity – support this advice. The analysis reads: “cross-border retail volumes are predicted to
increase at an annual average rate of 25% between 2015 and 2020 (from USD 300 billion to USD 900 billion).”
That is twice the pace of domestic e-commerce growth, emphasizes DHL.
The study sends a further advice to online retailers: they could boost their sales by 10-15 percent on average simply by jumping over their national fence and offer their products to
international markets.
Fast transportation option ups sales
DHL rounds up its recommendations by emphasizing that manufacturers and retailers could generate additional business by incorporating faster shipping options into their online offerings.
Suppliers that have done this reported a 1.6 increase in sales on average compared with others that did not offer the choice of rapid transportation.
Needless to say that this is a hardly concealed reference to their own premium product, literally confirmed by Ken Allen, CEO, DHL Express. “The opportunity to ‘go global’ and ‘go premium’ is
there for many retailers in all markets. Our global door-to-door time definite network is perfectly positioned to support any retailer that is developing a premium service offering or simply
looking for a way of reaching new overseas markets directly without investing resources in warehousing or distribution.”
Even small retailers could go global, capturing additional business
In their study, DHL encourages the market players to overcome reluctance and open up new fields of business. Online retailers can take a number of relatively easy steps to identify, cultivate and
service demand from abroad, states the Deutsche Post daughter. “The e-commerce trend has given birth to a new eco-system of facilitators and off-the-shelf solutions (such as payment providers and
programs that localize a website’s check-out experience for the visitor), helping retailers to adapt their offering to the digital world and to transact with customers in foreign markets,” Allen
states.
As to their own role they present themselves as partners, providing support in identifying the right trade-off between centralized and local warehousing and fulfillment, while fast, reliable and
flexible delivery options can be an important tool in turning speculative interest into long-term customer loyalty, the DHL study advocates.
Heiner Siegmund
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