International commerce often begins on a company's home
page. Forrester Research reported in 1998 that nearly 50 percent of
all Internet orders placed from outside the United States are
ignored. "[Many] U.S. businesses have no clue how to send the
product [internationally]," says Shapiro. "[It's
important to know] what it will cost to get the product from Point
A to Point B."
Shapiro recommends developing a checklist of what you can and
can't do. For example, are you willing to handle multiple
currencies? Can you calculate different shipping rates, taxes and
tariffs? How will you handle background and credit checks? What
about returns and service? "You need to understand your
capabilities and limitations," advises Shapiro.
To encourage international orders, Veltkamp offers these tips to
make your site globally friendly:
- Design flexible online response forms so overseas customers can
insert address information that doesn't fit
"standard" U.S. fields (such as Zip code, state
abbreviation or telephone number fields). Make sure forms won't
be "bounced back" as incomplete if an overseas visitor
fails to fill in a section.
- Don't use country flags to indicate translated pages.
Veltkamp points out that flags represent geographic regions, not
language groups. A visitor from Quebec won't feel welcomed by a
French flag nor will a Spanish-speaker from Mexico feel that that a
Spanish flag represents his or her language.
- Make it easy for international customers to determine how much
it will cost to purchase a product from your company. Consider
adding a currency converter to your site so visitors can determine
price equivalents. (A free currency converter is available at
Universal Currency Converter).
- Don't create the impression that you assume the United
States is the center of the commercial world. Avoid terms like
"foreign" when referring to international customers.
"The biggest complaint I hear from people outside the U.S. is
that the Internet is too U.S.-centric," says Veltkamp.
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Finally, make sure your page loads quickly. Many overseas
customers pay for their connection by the minute and won't
appreciate time-consuming graphics, Java scripts, animations or
videos. Don't rely on glitz to sell your product; let your
product sell itself.
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