Cross-border selling: Four ways to increase your cross-border sales

Key takeaways:

• To boost cross-border sales, localize your payment and checkout experiences by letting your customers pay the way they want, in their preferred currencies and payment methods.

• Optimize your conversions with machine learning (ML) to prevent errors, reduce false declines, and improve payment success rates.

• Add features such as autofill and guest checkout to your checkout page so that it’s easier and faster for customers to pay, minimizing cart abandonment.

In our recent research with Statista, we found that 89% of shoppers globally are comfortable buying a product from another country. As cross-border eCommerce continues to grow in the long term, you can capitalize on this opportunity to expand your customer base and grow your revenue.

With the right payment partner, you can get the proper tools and solutions to increase your cross-border sales. Generating customer interest is just one part of the equation – converting this interest into actual sales is equally important, and it boils down to having a seamless checkout experience. In particular, providing an intuitive and localized checkout experience that lets your customers pay in their local currency and in ways they're familiar with is key to driving conversions.

Below, we cover four ways to optimize your checkout experience and increase cross-border sales.

What is cross-border selling?

Cross-border selling refers to the online sale of goods or services to customers from other countries. To sell cross-border, businesses need to look into various aspects, including getting customers to purchase their products online, processing multi-currency payments, shipping orders internationally, managing returns and refunds, and providing timely customer support.

Common challenges of cross-border selling

Selling cross-border comes with a few challenges: 

Maintaining regulatory compliance

When operating internationally, it can be challenging to stay on top of the various regulations, including tax compliance, insurance, and consumer protection laws. Regulatory updates can be frequent and complex to keep track of, and failing to comply can result in penalties, reputational damage, or operational disruptions. Staying compliant helps you maintain customer trust and your brand image, as it shows that your business is reliable and trustworthy. Besides monitoring and keeping up with changing regulations, you can also implement solutions that simplify your tax reporting and compliance processes, such as automation, to reduce the manual effort and time spent.

Dealing with currency fluctuations

Handling multi-currency payments and currency conversions adds another layer of complexity. Fluctuating exchange rates directly impact your pricing and profit margins. Even small shifts in currency values can make a difference. For example, an unfavourable exchange rate can eat into your revenue and make it more costly to pay global suppliers. With frequent currency conversions, conversion fees can add up, making it more challenging for you to keep prices competitive while protecting your margins.

Adapting to customer payment preferences

Each region has unique spending habits and payment preferences. Data from our recent research shows that in Asia and Europe, a majority of customers prefer digital payment methods, such as Google Pay. At the same time, in the US, credit cards are the most preferred option. Understanding these preferences and offering the right payment options will help you succeed in each market, as they improve the customer experience, reduce checkout friction, and improve conversion rates. 

Partnering with a reliable payment platform can simplify these challenges. Look for a partner that can help you manage regulatory compliance, handle multi-currency transactions, and tailor payment methods to local preferences, so you can focus on expanding your business and increasing cross-border sales.

Four ways to increase your cross-border sales

Imagine you want to buy a pair of shoes from Japan. When you reach the payment page, you have to create a new account, manually enter your payment and billing details, and pay in ‌Japanese yen. Would you still complete the purchase, or drop off?

A complicated checkout process like this can cause your customers to abandon their cart. To increase cross-border sales, find ways to reduce checkout friction and make the purchasing process as easy as possible for customers. This could mean offering a wide range of payment methods, displaying prices in local currencies, using machine learning to retry failed payments, or incorporating time-saving features like auto-fill and guest checkout.

1. Boost checkout rates with local payment methods

Shoppers want a smooth and familiar checkout experience. Based on our recent research with Statista, 94% of shoppers globally say that the ability to pay using preferred payment methods is one of the most critical aspects of the checkout process. While credit and debit cards remain popular, they’re no longer enough to maximise sales. Region-specific local payment methods, such as digital wallets and buy now, pay later (BNPL) options, are quickly gaining popularity alongside more traditional payment methods. For example, customers in Europe prefer online payment methods like iDEAL and buy now, pay later (BNPL) options like Klarna, while in Asia, digital wallets like Alipay and Google Pay are the preferred payment methods for most shoppers.

When you offer a range of local payment methods that cater to varying preferences across markets, you gain a competitive advantage over other businesses that don’t. Not only do you make it easier for customers to pay you, but you also remove barriers that could otherwise prevent them from completing their purchases. For example, a customer in Germany might be more hesitant to purchase with their credit card compared to using iDEAL.

Integrating local payment methods into your checkout process can also improve your brand’s credibility. When a customer recognizes and trusts the payment method, they’re much more likely to make a purchase confidently. Look for a payment provider that offers a wide range of local payment methods and major card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard, so that you can capture more customers.

2. Reduce cart abandonment by displaying prices in local currencies

According to our recent research, 93% of shoppers around the world want to see prices in their local currency. When customers see prices in their familiar currency, they can make confident purchases quickly without having to convert currencies or worry about exchange rate fluctuations and hidden fees. This localisation helps to build trust and enhance the overall shopping experience, leading to higher conversions. Displaying prices in local currencies can broaden your reach by making your products more accessible globally, which in turn boosts sales in more markets. By partnering with a payment service provider that supports multi-currency pricing display, you can let your customers browse and pay in their local currencies, reducing the likelihood of cart abandonment.

3. Improve payment success rates with machine learning (ML)

Payment failures can occur due to technical glitches or temporary card declines, which can affect the customer experience and your bottom line. And legitimate transactions may sometimes be incorrectly flagged as suspicious, leading to false declines and lost sales.

Optimising your payment processes with ML can help reduce failed transactions and improve payment success rates. Modern payment platforms use ML-powered optimization engines to analyze transaction patterns in real-time, proactively addressing potential issues before they disrupt payments. ML features, such as automatic retries and ISO-optimized messaging, can reduce errors in payment processing. Automatic retries reattempt payments that may have failed due to temporary errors, to increase the chances of payment success. ISO-optimised messaging ensures transaction data is accurately formatted and transmitted between merchants, banks, and payment processors.

Security features such as tokenization further improve approval rates by protecting transaction data. Tokenization replaces sensitive payment information with unique identifiers, reducing ‌fraud risk and increasing the likelihood of payment approvals.

4. Reduce checkout friction with autofill and guest checkout features

Customers may find it a hassle when they have to create a new account or fill out lengthy forms to complete their purchase during the checkout process. By offering time-saving features like autofill and guest checkout, you make it faster and easier for customers to pay, leading to higher conversions.

Autofill lets customers save their payment details securely, so they don’t have to re-enter them every time they make a new purchase. This speeds up the checkout process and drives conversions for repeat customers. Guest checkout lets customers complete their purchases without creating a new account. Customers will only need to fill in essential details, such as shipping address and payment information, providing a faster and more convenient checkout experience.

Boost your cross-border sales with fast and intuitive checkouts

The right payment partner can help you ‌create fast and intuitive checkout experiences that turn more browsers into buyers by saving them time and making it easy for them to complete their purchase. With an intuitive checkout experience, they won’t have to create an account, enter their payment details manually, convert foreign currencies, or pay with unfamiliar payment methods.

Our platform, Airwallex, lets you accept payments in 130+ currencies, reaching more customers worldwide. When you enable automatic currency conversion (ACC), your customers can pay in their local currency and use familiar payment methods in their region. We offer over 160 local payment methods and direct connections with major card schemes, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and more. 

With our low-code Checkout solution, you can add new payment methods while maintaining the look and feel of your own site. It also lets your customers securely save payment details for future purchases or make one-time payments without needing to create an account. Alternatively, use our plug-and-play integrations to offer more payment options on popular platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento.

ML-powered optimisation also drives higher payment success rates, with features such as smart Merchant Category Code (MCC) assignment, automatic retries, ISO-optimized messaging and routing, and more. These features reduce false payment declines and improve authorization rates, which in turn improve payment success rates.

With Airwallex, it’s easy to expand even further. With 60+ global permits and licenses, you can enter new markets quickly without having to create a local entity or open a local bank account.