THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GLOBAL DTC ECOMMERCE FOR APPAREL BRANDS

SHOPPER PREFERENCES HAVE EVOLVED

As the world adapts to ongoing unpredictability, there is widespread consensus that many consumers will continue to shop online. Sixty-nine percent of US shoppers say that the pandemic changed their shopping behaviors, with 80% preferring to shop online.¹

Global retail ecommerce sales are expected to climb to almost $5 trillion USD this year, reaching $7.4 trillion by 2025.² Consumer confidence in online commerce is growing; and as travel restrictions remain, the number of shoppers looking outside their country for the right products will continue to accelerate.

According to ESW’s recent global shopper survey, one in four consumers purchase apparel from outside their domestic market.

ACCELERATE GROWTH WITH THE GLOBAL DTC ADVANTAGE

Best-in-class apparel brands are seizing this opportunity by harnessing the power of global DTC. With greater ownership of customer data and relationships, more flexibility, and visibility over their business, brands who capitalize on the DTC trend will see faster growth and drive higher customer lifetime values.

While the benefits are clear, expanding into new regions is not always smooth sailing. There are multiple complexities, many which vary between each country. Staying on top of these nuances and establishing processes to overcome them can be a time-consuming and expensive investment for brands. Working with an experienced DTC partner is the most efficient way to tap into the lucrative opportunities that await.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES

Brands growing their global footprint are under scrutiny and pressure (from the C-suite, boards, and investors) to deliver growth. Not knowing or having working solutions to global complexities poses serious risks for brands and their teams. In addition to the risk of financial loss, an expansion not done right can lead to a poorly localized shopping experience resulting in short term loss of repeat purchases, poor shopper satisfaction or even long term reputational damage.

For true global DTC success, brands must navigate each roadblock, to ensure compliance with the rules of every market and provide a seamless, localized experience to shoppers everywhere.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES
PROBLEM: INTERNAL RED TAPE

Brands seeking to develop and launch a cross-border ecommerce program in-house need a lot of resources and time for planning, development, and launch.

Additional hires are one of the biggest implementation costs to consider. According to Forrester, retailers would need an average of four full-time employees for each country they wanted to expand into. Building out this team will be costly and time consuming.

Retailers looking to recover from the pandemic will likely wish to avoid such substantial investments. This makes it challenging for those responsible for global growth to get approval for capital expenditures and additional headcount. In general, investments like these require a lengthier process than getting vendor approval, and carry much greater risk.

“For those retailers and brands seeking to move quickly to capture post-crisis demand wherever it proves strongest, working with third-party service providers is likely to prove more appealing than setting up cross-border operations in-house”
Coresight Research

ESW SOLUTION

Partnering with a third-party vendor enables brands to move quickly without the initial upfront costs and time that would have been needed to grow a team in-house.

A 2021 Forrester study revealed that by partnering with ESW,³ brands:

Could access new markets 6x faster
Were likely to access 65 more countries beyond their own capabilities
Saw revenue increase of 70-85% annual lift above their own market expectations
Save over $3 million USD in operational costs
Save over $10 million USD in implementation costs and avoid hiring 4 full-time employees per country.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES

PROBLEM: DRIVING DEMAND

“Selling successfully in international markets requires local knowledge and expertise in areas such as marketing, communications, payments and delivery”
Coresight Research

To determine the most advantageous markets, brands can assess where they are seeing web traffic and identify similar consumers in terms of demographics and preferences. These data points may guide market entry decisions, but proper analysis is needed to ensure that the demand is worth the investment of launching in that market.

Global DTC success requires an optimized go-to-market strategy, from demand generation to customer retention, and everything in between. It means ensuring ad campaigns are in the local language and contain a message that rings true with the local customer.

This can be challenging for brands unfamiliar with new territories. The research and investment required can mean that without additional (often remote) staff or the use of an external agency, these efforts may be inconsistent and ineffective, forcing brands to withdraw from possibly lucrative countries and lose their initial investments.

ESW SOLUTION

By working with some of the best-loved brands in the world, ESW’s Velocity services provide unmatched expertise in driving DTC growth. ESW works to manage and optimize the entire shopper journey, including digital ad management, analytics and performance analysis, marketing and promotional strategy, and ongoing customer experience optimization.

A growing Australian apparel brand utilizing ESW Velocity marketing services has seen web traffic increase over 150% YOY and their international revenue skyrocket 613% YOY.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES
PROBLEM: LOCALIZATION

Best-in-class retailers know that the gold standard in cross-border ecommerce is to provide a domesticequivalent experience to customers regardless of their location. Knowing and solving for the cultural nuances in each country isn’t easy. The more markets that a brand wishes to enter, the more intricacies they’re likely to encounter.

International shoppers say that a localized shopping experience is their most important consideration when shopping cross-border.⁴

To convert consumer demand into sales, build shopper loyalty, and drive repeat purchases, brands must master these essential localization tactics:

Websites should be country-specific with local content and merchandising.
Customers should be able to shop and receive customer service in their local language. 71% of respondents to ESW’s Global Voices survey said they preferred customer service in their own language.⁵
Pricing management is more than just understanding currency conversion. Prices should also take into account shipping, duties & taxes. 76% of consumers expect that shipping cost should be upfront prior to completing purchase.⁶
“Retailers must offer payment options that are not just familiar to shoppers, but which are tailored to optimize conversion.”⁷ It’s also important for brands to have a team monitoring for fraudulent payments.

ESW SOLUTION

From the localization of websites to translation, pricing strategy, and support of the latest payment methods, ESW ensures global shoppers have a familiar, domestic-equivalent experience, localized to make both checkout and package delivery smooth and seamless. ESW’s team of experts localize every element of the shopper journey so the checkout experience feels as integrated and intuitive to international shoppers as it does to domestic shoppers.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES
PROBLEM: LOGISTICS

Global logistics for ecommerce are complex, as each country or region has its own regulations and intricacies. Relationships with last-mile carriers must be formed in every region to ensure successful and efficient package delivery. The returns process must be as seamless and transparent as possible, as the entire shopper experience and their continued loyalty to your brand often hinges on it:

76% of shoppers surveyed said they expect delivery costs to be transparent before completing their purchase.⁸
67% would buy more if they were provided delivery tracking.⁹
73% of shoppers say the overall returns experience affects their likelihood to purchase from a retailer again.¹⁰

ESW SOLUTION

ESW’s established carrier partnerships and network of distribution and returns hubs around the world ensure the best rates and the most efficient delivery. Returns are tracked through a branded, customer-facing portal and received quickly at local hubs for the fastest refunds. ESW is also the only global DTC provider that can give shoppers highly accurate estimated delivery dates for packages going anywhere in the world, which significantly increases conversion and provides the best shopper experience.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES
PROBLEM: OMNICHANNEL

The worldwide pandemic accelerated consumer behavior trends that had been underway for quite some time. Today, omnichannel competencies are an integral part of the ecommerce landscape. Seventy-one percent of shoppers in ESW’s recent survey said that, post-pandemic, they would continue to purchase via a mix of digital and physical channels.¹¹ This highlights the importance of delivering omnichannel experiences in retailers’ international commerce strategies as many countries begin to ease COVID-19 restrictions.

SHOPPERS HAVE COME TO EXPECT THESE THREE ESSENTIAL OMNICHANNEL CAPABILITIES:

ESW SOLUTION

ESW enables a full suite of global DTC omnichannel features for its clients, with a key focus on optimizing the use of inventory locations, including local franchises, mixed ownership digital channel and local stores.

Enabling these omnichannel features also helps apparel brands meet their sustainability goals by reducing their carbon footprint while increasing efficiency.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES
PROBLEM: DATA

Best-in-class brands know that customer data should provide the basis for all decisions and knowing customers intimately can give insights that market research would never uncover. When expanding into new territories, brands are exposed to entirely new audiences with different behaviors that are crucial to understand.

Data from across all areas of the business is invaluable to retailers, as it can be used for product development, inventory management, remarketing and more.

ESW SOLUTION

Retailers working with third-party vendors or marketplaces often give up ownership of their data in exchange for customer acquisition.

ESW’s clients retain ownership of all their shopper data. Dashboards and analytics give brand executives insight into the full customer funnel, as well as technology, performance, conversion, and returns. Brands can also use ESW’s consultative services to make decisions on how to optimize their ecommerce experience, or have ESW take on day-to-day country ecommerce management.

GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES
PROBLEM: MANAGING RISK

THE RISKS FACING APPAREL BRANDS EXPANDING THEIR ECOMMERCE INTO NEW TERRITORIES COME FROM THREE MAIN AREAS:

Managing and maintaining compliance is a time-consuming endeavor for global brands and retailers. As well as financial risks, non-compliance with local laws and regulations risks damage to brand reputation, financial penalties, or being banned from selling into certain markets.

ESW SOLUTION

Forrester found that ESW clients saved an average of $10.5million USD in implementation costs by partnering with ESW for global ecommerce.¹⁴ ESW requires no up-front investment and allows brands to avoid hiring additional employees. Any risk of expansion is further mitigated by the fact that ESW can easily shut off any market that isn’t generating revenue. By acting as the merchant of record, ESW takes on the risk on behalf of the retailer. With a team that is always aware of the frequent changes in regulations, ESW puts in place appropriate processes for each market. This ensure:

All guidelines are adhered to
Relevant information is handed over to the authorities
Accurate VAT/GST is collected, reported and paid
Appropriate customs declarations are completed
Brands are kept aware of any regulatory changes that would affect their ecommerce business

CONSIDER IT DONE WITH ESW

Navigating global complexities can be cumbersome for apparel brands, but it is essential to fully capitalize on the DTC opportunity. ESW powers DTC ecommerce for the world’s best loved brands, ensuring an optimized experience at every stage of the shopper journey, in every market.

ESW can handle everything from customer acquisition to checkout, to logistics and delivery, customer service, and returns. This means:

Sufficient demand in markets sure to deliver the most ROI
A fully localized shopping experience
Complicated logistics are taken care of Brands have access to all of their data
Compliance is guaranteed, reducing the risk for retailers

ACCELERATE DTC GROWTH WITHIN AND ACROSS BORDERS

The leading apparel, luxury and beauty brands drive over $1.5BN GMV annually with ESW. If you’re looking to scale your ecommerce channel, ESW has the solution to fit your DTC needs.

FLUENCY EXPRESS IS A LIGHTWEIGHT INTEGRATION THAT HELPS BRANDS GO TO MARKET QUICKLY.

FLUENCY ENTERPRISE IS A CUSTOMIZED SOLUTION DELIVERED BY A DEDICATED TEAM TO HELP LARGE BRANDS EXECUTE ON THEIR GLOBAL STRATEGY.

SYMPHONY IS A COMPLETE ENTERPRISE DTC SOLUTION, FROM THE DESIGN AND BUILD OF YOUR BRAND’S ONLINE STORE, TO DEDICATED TEAMS FOR THE DAY-TO-DAY MANAGEMENT OF THE TRADING ENVIRONMENT.