Selling to consumers outside a company’s home market can be daunting and, most of the times, local knowledge is vital to be able to exploit all the posibilities and understand the user behaviour. Many European and APAC merchants are looking at the US Market because they have conquered their own. It would be nice if entering the US market only needed an English language website and a trip to the bank! This is not the case.
Of course, businesses can succeed in any market if the product is compelling. If a market doesn’t know your product exists or how much they need it, breaking through may take effort. Instead of focusing on what you are selling – focus on how you are selling to this market.
Starting with your website’s look and feel, there are things that appeal to US buyers. First, don’t make it too busy; remember, a US shopper has other simultaneous activity across multiple devices, so make your site simple. The last thing US consumers want is to dig around, read too much, or remember why they actually came to your site.
Once they select an item to purchase, your attention shifts to the US cart and it seems to scream abandonment. According to a Barillance study, 74.5% of US carts were abandoned on Black Friday (2017) vs. 72.5% globally. Remedies are available, but know that abandonment rates will be higher here.
US buyers leave carts for a few reasons such as missing payment types. This is easy to handle as US buyers love their credit cards. As long as the major brands are present, your cart will do well.
Add-on fees are another deterrent. Insurance, assembly or support fees? Goodbye! Conversely, mention ‘Sale’, ‘Coupon’, or ‘Free’ and get their undivided attention. US buyers may leave carts/sites looking for coupons, so make it easy for them to stay, use your coupons, and complete that purchase.
When US buyers purchase online, they are not going to make a mental shift from US sites offering expedited delivery to the international merchant with longer shipping times. They expect one-day delivery. Having a US fulfillment house will help global businesses provide the local delivery US buyers demand. This is a very important issue as surveys by Statista report: during the recent survey period, 54% of respondents stated they had abandoned shopping carts due to the cost of shopping.
Now, you have provided fast shipping at low fees, coupons, simple payment selections, and a clean process, it’s time to start trimming checkout fields. US shoppers mandate fewer fields than any other geography. This reluctance to complete data fields stems from a few sources. First, US consumers do not tend to participate in the security of their online shopping. They normally are not held financially responsible by their banks for transactions that were not theirs so they don’t want to enter extra authentication/demographic data to secure purchases.
Online shopping protection, like 3DS, has been available in the US for years. We are now working on version 2.0 of 3DS and still not getting cardholder participation. A password? That I must remember? And use!? Surely, you jest? They would rather change sites, restart their search, and pay more than remember any password created years ago.
Some call US buyers “lazy”, but they are generally the most over-worked, under-vacationed people for their economy size. Europeans think American time off a joke. While other countries have multiple weeks off each year, Americans get 10 days, including sick days in most cases. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, at least 30% of Americans have less than ten days with another 8% having one week or less. With so little time off, shopping happens during workday 15-minute breaks. Many US workers use a computer for 9-12 hours daily. They may take 10 minutes out of their day to buy something from you, and now you want them to remember a 3DS password?
Another reason US buyers don’t like providing data is because they do not want to provide too much information in the event of a breach. Merchant breaches in the US are extremely expensive and time consuming to address. Never mind transaction-level security; say breach in the US and you get a hundred stories of inconvenience and stress.
This cart simplicity in the US means online fraud thrives. High-risk transactions occur constantly. Since this market is fraught with risk and potential loss, it should be entered with a strong awareness for merchandise cost, loss assessment, and fraud prevention. Merchants selling in this space must separate harried US buyers from crafty thieves without jeopardizing the customer experience. However, do not take too many milliseconds returning a message because that, too, will annoy a US buyer.
To sell in the US market, think about an over-worked, over-stressed, convenience-oriented shopper who waited until the last moment to spend 5 minutes finding the perfect item at the right price – and build THAT customer experience.
About Sally Baptiste
Sally Baptiste has 30+ years professional experience with both the largest US ecommerce acquirers and as the payment professional for two of the strongest companies in the world. As a leader at Chase Paymentech for 13 years, then a Senior Business Manager of payments for AT&T for 9 years, she was most recently employed as the payments expert for McAfee and Intel where she significantly grew online global payments. With a Master of Business Administration degree and Payment Card Industry Professional certification, she now co-owns her own consulting group of Payment Experts.
About Payment Operations Group
Payment Operations Group is a consultancy of Payment Professionals with over 40 years’ combined experience in the Payments Industry – From Acquiring and ISO’s to Issuing and Merchant perspectives. Our focus is on educating our clients with our end-to-end approach to payment processing, helping them navigate the complex ecosystem, and strengthening their position in their chosen processes.
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