Brands that sell their products or services online are more likely to attract a global customer base than a purely brick-and-mortar store due to the accessibility of the internet. But, other than launching an e-commerce store, what technology can make selling products to international customers more streamlined?
Currency trends
It is important to remember the different currencies people might want your site to display and how the different exchange rates might affect your pricing. The easiest way to do so is to keep track of how strong your currency is compared to foreign currencies – the stronger it is, the more you can purchase in foreign currency (such as from suppliers abroad), but the less others can purchase from your store. Conversely, the weaker your currency, the less foreign currency you can get, but the more beneficial it will be for consumers abroad to purchase your currency.
For example, the DXY chart is an external bilateral trade-weighted average value of the US dollar (USD) against six other global currencies, which include the Euro (EUR), the Japanese yen (JPY), and the Swiss franc (CHF). The DXY increases when the strength or value of the USD increases compared to these other currencies. The chart shows real-time data of the day, week, month, six months, year, five years, and all time, as well as news, ideas, and technical insights that can provide useful predictions and estimate future trends, plus predictions and positions that other traders are making or taking about the same data.
By keeping track of this data, you can use it to inform your pricing strategies for domestic and international consumers and better manage the cost of imports and exports and the affordability of your suppliers.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
Nowadays, AI is a buzzword of sorts across many different sectors. From finance to data inputting, even art and writing, AI has many different applications that boast the opportunity to streamline processes and improve online customer experience. That said, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to utilizing AI in a business – it’s all about evaluating your organization, identifying pain points or areas you might improve to benefit international consumers, and ascertaining how AI might help this become a reality.
Let’s take customer service, for example. Even if you offer customer contact options like phone lines, live chat, and email throughout the business day, international consumers may miss out due to the difference in time zone or the additional charges of calling an international phone number. This is where AI chatbots can come in handy, allowing you to operate customer help services 24/7. However, it is important to remember that, despite largely favoring them for their quick responses to simple queries, 75% of consumers agree that chatbots cannot handle complex questions, so they shouldn’t be the sole contact method available.
In addition to this, AI can automatically generate invoices and receipts. This can be particularly useful for those with international customers, as it can gather up-to-date data to potentially estimate the exchange rate at the point of sale for both the business and consumer.
With these ideas in mind, you’ll be able to take meaningful steps towards making selling products online worldwide as stress-free as possible.
