Ecommerce User Experience Vol. 10: International Purchasers

5th Edition

International Users
• Topics:
International Users
• International Users

Part of Series: Ecommerce User Experience

Customers often struggle with language, measurements, pricing, delivery options, policies, and receiving support when shopping with retailers based outside their own countries. 

Retailers can stop losing international business by implementing some quick solutions to many of these issues. As to companies trying to localize their design for a specific region, it’s vital to understand that local customers may have culturally specific preferences for customer support channels, content presentation, and payment options. This report provides guidelines for localizing and internationalizing your ecommerce designs to target international purchasers.

This 291-page report contains 117 design recommendations based on our user research. Discussions and 271 screenshot illustrations supplement the findings.

Topics

• International user behaviors
  • Motivations for international shopping 
  • When international customers aren’t supported
  • Different concerns in different locations
  • Discovering international experience problems
• Key issues of global ecommerce sites
  • Who can shop here
  • Letting users shop in their own language
  • Sizes and measurements
  • Forms and data
  • Inflexible or vague policies
  • Customer support via social media apps
  • Mistakes to avoid
• Adapting your site for international purchasers
  • Two types of adaptation
  • Factors impacting cross-cultural design
  • Test with your target audience
  • Deciding which approach you should use
• Language and location
  • Language and country switching features
  • Handling multiple sites
• Homepage and navigation
  • Introducing offerings for global purchasers
  • Localization considerations
• Content and content presentation
  • Things to watch out when translating content
  • International differences in dates, numbers, and time
• Search
  • Allowing searching in the languages you support
  • Supporting location searches
• Prices and currency
  • Displaying prices and currency for international audiences
  • Disclosing additional costs
• Product information for a worldwide audience
• Selling strategies: Localizing your promotions
• Shipping considerations
  • How to feature international shipping options
  • Information about international shipping
  • Handling taxes and tariffs
• Supporting international customers
  • Writing site policies for a global audience 
  • Offering multiple contact methods
  • Providing local contact information
  • Using social media and live chat
• Registration and checkout
  • Localized registration options
  • Forms that facilitate checkout
  • Payment options
• Trust and customer loyalty: Fostering a local customer community
• How to conduct user research with audiences in multiple regions

Research Method

The information in this report is based on five separate rounds of ecommerce studies for this and the previous four editions of this report. These studies included a mix of the following methodologies.

• One-on-one usability testing
• Diary-based longitudinal studies
• Eyetracking
• Expert review

Representative users tested 350+ ecommerce websites. The studies took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, India, and China.