Three quarters of Brits have bought online products cross-border in the last twelve months
Two thirds (68 per cent) of online shoppers have bought something online from outside their home country in the past year, with this figure rising to 75 per cent in the UK, research from CPA network Rakuten LinkShare and research house Forrester Consulting has found.
The report, which covered the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil, France and Germany, found that of those that already shop internationally, the majority plan to increase their imports rather than decrease them in the year ahead.
Mark Haviland, Rakuten LinkShare M, said: “With e-commerce expected to grow to $1.3 trillion by the end of this year, brands and advertisers are looking for advice and insights for how to plan and execute their global online strategies.
“Shoppers in different markets are incentivised to purchase in different ways. To illustrate, for a UK affiliate manager looking to capitalise on cross-border commerce in the US, it’s not as simple as rolling out an existing affiliate programme and expecting results. Research suggests US shoppers are particularly loyal to brands that make offers on multiple websites, so affiliate programmes should be tailored to cater to this propensity.
“The majority of merchant and publisher brands we work with are seeing growth opportunities in diverse foreign markets, and so we wanted to help them understand the intricacies of certain markets, and how they might impact marketing and sales strategies. The clarity we see from this report has demonstrated how varied market strategies need to be, as well as what approaches can be common to all.”
In the UK, it was found that 61 per cent of consumers would reconsider an abandoned shopping basket if they received an offer; while in the US shoppers who start their purchase journey on an affiliate site spend more than the average online shopper ($1,617 vs. $1,547) and are most loyal to brands that make offers on multiple websites.