Horizons of New Possibilities: The Most Promising Countries For Your Business

Online business is confined by no borders. With the outspread of convenient and accessible digital payment methods, you now can pick up the best country for the business of yours and immediately start moving towards its local market. The only question left is – where to move, or, in other words, what countries promise more possibilities to your business?

To answer this question, we’ve created a list of countries where eCommerce gained the highest implantation rate. If deciding to open an international eCommerce business, base your choice of the country on the research we’ve made to find out where your company will be able to reach more people and obtain more money when selling goods through the Internet.

Table of contents:

1. USA
2. UK
3. China
4. Norway and Finland

USA

Even though the small online business in the USA challenges such a retail giant as Amazon, small eCommerce businesses still have niches to occupy – and make a great profit. For example, automotive products, as well as clothes & shoes, vehicle parts and accessories, sports equipment, and even collectibles are some of the products that use the highest popularity on the online market of the US.

In 2019, more than $365 billion were spent online by Americans. In 2020, this number is expected to reach $420 billion, according to the economics prognosis. When comparing the rate of growth both for online and total retail purchases, the first one demonstrates the unthinkable 15% (as per 2019) compared to 3.8%. This is the best illustration of the fact that the influence of online purchases will steadily increase while the traditional in-shop purchases will only give up positions to global online retail sales.

Take into account the events taking place in the world – with the embedding of quarantine in America due to coronavirus danger, online purchases has increased several times. Being forced to make purchases on the Internet, buyers get acquainted with the online market and, thereby, increase their knowledge of finances and virtual purchases. In such areas as online games, product delivery, software for work management and video conferencing, qualitative services use a high demand, which can be used by a merchant to their advantage.

The average online shopping cheque in the USA stays around $1804 – the highest number among all the countries that participated in the research. All the data allows suggesting that the US offers great possibilities for merchants who decide to develop their activity in the niche of online shopping.

Still, the US might be tricky to conquer for a new business, as the country’s market has both its benefits and challenges, which has to be taken into attention before the decision of opening an online-shop is made.

Conveniences

First and foremost, the thing that majorly determines the befitting of the US market is its size. On the territory of the country lives more than 327 million people, among whom there are at least 68 million of young people in 25-34 age gape. As you may already know, this age layer consists of the people who make the most purchases online on a frequent basis.

If planned carefully, your promotion strategy will reach a great number of financially capable young people, who – with a high probability – will make purchases from your shop.

What is more, the significant advantage of Americans is their digital literacy. According to the research, about 84% of all adult people in the US know how to use a computer well. In addition to that, American people have an excellent payment culture and a thorough understanding of online payment processes. This characterizes the US market as generally favorable to your global eCommerce website.

Challenges

Opening an international eCommerce business is hard by itself, and the US market won’t make this task easier. When entering the local sales race, be ready to compete with such merchandise giants as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart for your target audience. These companies sell a wide variety of goods for bottom-low prices, so, when compared to them, your global eCommerce website might seem less attractive due to higher rates (the indefeasible feature of retail trade) and the absence of physical stores. Smaller shops usually take a narrow niche and offer their clients custom products of high quality that couldn’t be found in a local Walmart store or on Amazon.

All in all, the US might become your primary market – but only if you’re willing to fight for it with thousands of other companies of all sizes and profiles.

To somewhat simplify the task and enable global eCommerce payments, you can stick up with PayOp, that offers more than 35 payment methods for US customers, including Skrill, Paysafecard, credit card transfers, Western Union, Perfect Money, and others. With such assistance, you’ll be able to concentrate on actually important tasks of company promotion and development instead of stuffing your head with financial nuances.

UK

The UK is an actual leader across all the countries when it comes to the eCommerce share of general retail turnover. In the United Kingdom, that number reached 18.4% in 2018. This means that among all the retail purchases completed in the country, about the fifth part of them was made in online stores, which led to $688 billion income through 2018.

Moreover, the point to the attractiveness of the market adds the fact that in 2019 about 82% of all adult Britons bought products online, while at the 16-34 age group, the rate was as high as 90%. On top of it, according to the research, if you have a global eCommerce website that specializes in:

• clothes & accessories
• sports equipment
• household products
• entertaining materials (music, films, books, newspapers)
• electronic hardware

..you can try your dexterity and entrepreneur skills on the market of the UK with a great chance of reaching success. The wealth and digital literacy of Britons, as well as the average revenue per buyer at around $1629, promise a breakneck growth to those businesses that enter the broad market of the UK.

Conveniences & Challenges

Currently, the greatest advantage – and disadvantage, at the same time – is the political situation inside the country. 31 January 2020 was the day when the UK officially stopped to be a part of the EU, and local small businesses still don’t know whether the future is about to bring them prosperity or decay.

One is known for sure – the shift in the political situation of the country will open new possibilities for both local and international eCommerce businesses to fit inside the seemingly inaccessible and trying market of the UK. And if your business isn’t afraid to change and evolve together with the economic background, then the UK might be the best opportunity for your organization to start conquering unfamiliar marketing scenes.

PayOp would be glad to become your loyal assistant in this challenging task – we offer more than 30 European payment methods like Skrill and Klarna, all of which can be integrated to your website to give your UK customers the outstanding support.

China

China has long ago become a synonym for online shopping, thanks to such eCommerce giants as AliExpress, Taobao, and Pinduoduo. And while all the possible rates of growth, penetration rate, revenue-per-client in China are growing in a breakneck way, it still can hardly be called an opportune market for small eCommerce worldwide businesses.

Let’s start with good news. As per 2019, China leaves all the world behind when it comes to the revenue from online shopping – by the end of the year, the number has reached $1,001,974 million. Compared to the US revenue from eCommerce, China is ahead twofold. Only this information makes merchants think about China as of their future online selling field, but we won’t recommend you hurrying to enter its market – and that’s where the fly in the ointment is. China’s eCommerce scene is as appealing as challenging. Thousands of companies every year become tantalized by China only to fail miserably after facing the complicated structure of the local placement of forces.

Challenges (and challenges mainly)

The market of the country is oversaturated. The competition rate here is so high that having small to no budget automatically leaves you no chances of entering the economics scene and retaking your target audience from rivals. The extreme rate at which China produces goods to the whole world means that the country is pretty much self-sustaining, so no outside businesses can offer something drastically new to the local buyers.

This, of course, should not be spread on your company if you offer something really unique or custom-made. For example, the demand for digital goods – applications, games, social media platforms – is still high, as well as the sales in the following niches:

• beauty products and healthcare
• clothes, accessories, footwear
• sport equipment
• tech and hardware

And if you’re seriously considering China as the best country for your business, then PayOp has lots of traditional and alternative payment methods for you to offer – be it UnionPay, AliPay, or WeChat.

Norway and Finland

When looking for less competing yet equally promising countries for global online retail sales, merchants often think about Norway and Finland (combined together due to geographical proximity.) Indeed, the markets of these two Scandinavian markets demonstrate a great interest in eCommerce retailer shops, which can be deducted from the penetration rate (83.6% in Norway and 84% in Finland), eCommerce yearly revenue ($5,693 million in Norway and $5,630 million in Finland) and an averaged sum spent in an online shop by one customer ($1,257 in Norway and $1,209 in Finland.)

As you can see, the eCommerce statistics for Norway and Finland are quite similar, so from now on, we’ll be talking about them as of one big Scandinavian market.

Among the products that sell best on the Scandinavian market are:

• electronics and hardware
• apparel, accessories, shoes
• products for hobbies and sports
• furniture and home products

Yet, before entering the market with your newest furniture collection, make sure to study the demand for your products and learn the buyers’ behavior to talk with your customers on the same wave (this advice is relevant even if you’ll choose some other country to roll out your activity.)

Conveniences

Scandinavian people of almost all age groups demonstrate a high online engagement rate. This basically means that you’ll be able to reach people of all age groups as you’ll be targeting the audience on social media & other resources. This also means high financial literacy, even among the older people who seldom make online purchases – but not when it comes to Norway & Finland.

Another feature that only the Scandinavian market can brag about is the sophisticated logistics, which allows to ship and deliver products of all kinds with no delays or losses.

Challenges

The Scandinavian market is quite favorable to the international e Commerce businesses, so the only challenging thing a merchant would face is the localization of his products and services on Norwegian or Suomi languages.

Thanks to PayOp, the merchant as well wouldn’t be burdened with the choice of local payment methods. By integrating one PayOp plugin, your website will receive access to all popular and convenient payment methods like Verkkopankki, Klarna, Trustly, and Entercash, so that your customers will be able to pay in any way they prefer it.

What country to choose?

There is a wide variety of European, Asian, American markets that might lack exactly your business. To pick up the most suitable scene, you should get acquainted with all markets to decide whether your business and local customers are a “match.”

Analyze the statistics and take into consideration the prognosis made by economists. You should feel the trend, the local state of political/economic things and compare, whether you two are on the same wave.

Aside from the listed countries, there are Sweden, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and other countries with strong economic potential, which might be suitable for your business particularization. Whatever your final choice would be, you should know that PayOp would be glad to be there to catch you.