When exploring your ecommerce platform options, Magento is likely to be one of the key platforms you consider. It can be difficult to truly evaluate which platform will suit your needs, but there are certainly key differences for ecommerce brands who sell internationally.
International ecommerce brands face unique challenges that an ecommerce platform will need to help solve, and Magento has a strong armoury of functionality to support any retailer when taking their brand international.
Why is Magento perfect for international ecommerce brands?
#1 – Multi-site and multi-store management
One of Magento’s core strengths as a platform is in its multi-store management. As Paul Rogers says in his evaluation of Magento compared to Shopify Plus, “the platform is built around managing data at different levels that allows for efficient management of multiple stores.”
Magento 2 has the ability for a retailer to manage multiple stores from one admin area, with comprehensive flexibility for each storefront across pricing, language, content and more.
For example, we worked with Augustinus Bader to migrate their seven individual Shopify Plus stores over to three sites (UK, US and EU) and across six store views (English, French, German and Spanish). This flexibility and granular management from one admin has allowed the high-growth health and beauty brand to thrive internationally.
Other platforms offer some form of multi-store management, but with limited infrastructure and flexibility. Magento really excels at managing multiple storefronts for international brands.
#2 – Multi-language functionality
Similarly, you can create multiple stores with various languages. This is obviously key for an international brand trading in regions across the world with different languages.
Magento 2 store views (with the same domain) allow you to customise language content based on where the shopper is located.
This is crucial when aiming to provide a seamless customer experience for your shoppers across the world. You need to be able to deliver the right content to the right customer in the right language, and Magento 2 store views are transformative here for this.
#3 – Multi-currency and payments
Magento 2 also offers flexibility when it comes to both displaying and accepting multiple currencies.
At a store view level, you can customise the currency to that region (EUR to a French store, GBP to a British store, USD to a US store etc.). This also creates a seamless customer experience for your shoppers who will be able to make payment in their desired currency.
However, you can also configure the currency you receive at a site level under your ‘base currency’. If you set up your base currency for your European site as GBP, you will always take payment in GBP, regardless of if your store view is accepting EUR, GBP or another European currency.
#4 – Multiple pricing options
Magento 2 also allows for retailers to offer different prices for the same product across sites. Across your key regions, you may want to price products differently depending on currency conversion or additional costs to cover when trading internationally.
This is also useful for retailers with a direct-to-consumer site and a wholesale site.
#5 – Multiple payment methods
Magento is a flexible platform for accepting various payment methods.
If you’re a retailer based in the UK, you will be familiar with accepting Visa and Mastercard, PayPal etc. However, in other territories you may need to explore new payment methods, such as Alipay. You may also see customers opt for other payment methods such as bank transfer or cheque, which may be rarer to see in the UK.
Whilst Magento can help you with this natively, by working with a payment partner such as Adyen, with a ‘baked in’ integration with Magento 2, you will be able to easily explore and fully take advantage of payment options for each region you want to expand into.
#6 – Easy tax calculations
Magento simplifies some of the complex tax calculations needed when trading internationally.
With Magento 2, you can set up tax rates for all regions and localities with their tax zone and tax rates functionality. This is a simple enough feature for most retailers who are in the early stages of international selling, although once you begin to grow and expand into more regions and increase your volume, you will need to use a tool like Avalara.
Selling internationally
International expansion can be challenging but can also unlock plenty of growth potential. International growth is a strategic objective for many retailers and so selecting the right ecommerce platform to help you achieve this is crucial. For most retailers, this is likely to be Magento.
If you’re interested in exploring how Magento 2 Commerce or Magento 2 Commerce Cloud can help you grow internationally, then get in touch.