International Business and Technology Blog

Brazil - The largest economy in South America and with exciting potential for further growth. No wonder exporters have Brazil firmly in their export destination sights. While its size and potential growth are tempting, it is not for the inexperienced exporter. Brazil is a difficult market to enter, subject to a history of complex protectionist policies.

But for the persistent exporter, Brazil holds out the trophy of a lucrative and growing market. Use online tools to your advantage to be found, understood and transact your business in Brazil – one of the most internet-aware markets in the world. The infographic below will help you grasp and understand the potential of Brazil’s online environment, social media, and ecommerce.

Vapor Pin Enterprises, Inc. patented the Vapor Pin®, which allows environmental professionals a means of collecting high-quality, low-cost soil gas samples within minutes. Management was convinced that Brazil would be responsive to ecommerce and they turned to their local, US-based web agency for help. Unfortunately, the local web company did not have the experience, the know-how or the tools and skills to build localized Brazilian ecommerce websites. IBT Online was proud to be called in to help fix the problem and get a great, functioning, optimized and safe localized Brazilian ecommerce website with an accompanying online marketing strategy.

Localizing websites is more than translating a few pages – it involves deep local knowledge, wide technical experience and strong locally-based search engine optimization skills. Ecommerce plug-ins also need to be suited to the local market, taking into account local payment habits, safety and compliance regulations. For Brazilian ecommerce, according to Director of Sales Laurie A. Chilcote, “everything is in place including, distributors, accountants, lawyers…now we need to get online”. It was the right time to call in IBT Online to ensure the Brazilian website was launched on-time and on-budget with a full ecommerce platform and online marketing strategy to power up sales.

EuroDentalDepot is the brainchild of VistaDental, where innovation is key to success. The company invents, patents, manufactures and distributes highly specific dental devices and equipment. For its home market, the United States, the company has built up a trusted network of distributors and has an established reputation for quality, built since its foundation in 1997. But for export markets, management were keen to fast-track its growth. Going online with great local websites coupled with a strong ecommerce platform provided the solution, and IBT Online was delighted to help from the outset.

The land grab for internet users in India is in full swing and nowhere more so than in ecommerce. India now has the second largest number of internet users in the world, behind China, but this still means that about 65% of India’s population is not yet on the internet. While there are many Indian tech companies there are surprisingly few independent internet players, leaving the field open to the internet giants of the world. Google, with a historically impenetrable 96% market share in India, is facing serious competition from Chinese search engine giant Baidu. Amazon and Alibaba are dividing up online retail, gobbling up homegrown talent while Uber, Facebook and others all look for a slice of the cake.

Are you thinking of setting up an international online store? We put together a quick test that will help you evaluate whether your products and business model are suitable for selling online internationally.

The array of products to sell online is enormous. Frankly, creating an exhaustive list of all requirements for online sales that would address every single type of product sold from and to every single market in the world is an impossible task. To keep things fun and easy, we put together a list of questions that you should ask yourself when deciding whether to sell online internationally.

Our blog How to sell online in Germany introduced the attractiveness of the German ecommerce market and outlined the main expectations of German e-shoppers, including payment methods, delivery, returns, mobility, personalization and terms & policies. Today, we will have a closer look at the theme of German online payment methods.

According to the German E-Commerce and Distance Selling Trade Association (bevh) study, the most popular online payment method preferred by 39% of German e-shoppers are online payment services. Besides the international platform PayPal there are many local online payment service providers such as Sofortüberweisung.de, ClickandBuy and Giropay that are well known and have a significant market share of the online payment services.

With Christmas fast approaching, several reports have just been published reviewing the role of ecommerce, cross border shopping and the importance of country specific websites for North American and European exporters. All the reports point to the same conclusion: ecommerce is now mainstream and if your websites are not fully prepared, you are unlikely to get the full benefit of the Christmas shopping binge. So for exporters, how do you make sure your websites will perform optimally across multiple markets? Here are a few pointers.

“Building a Capital Markets Union” is a European Commission (EC) “green paper” that launched earlier this year. The stated objective is how Europe can leverage its single market (it’s always about single markets…) to improve financial services, consumer choice and, most importantly, access to capital for investment in European businesses, notably Europe’s Small Medium Enterprises (SME). By 2019, so just 4 years away, the EC will present its legislative proposals to the European Parliament. The digital revolution has brought a wealth of improved consumer services and greater access to funding opportunities.

Way back in May 2015, the European Commission (EC) presented its Digital Single Market (DSM) directive. Four months later and the program has advanced rapidly, with all concerned stakeholders now actively involved: not surprising given the economic and political import of the DSM! The European Parliament has held debates and issued statements; the European Council similarly, the EC has held numerous public consultations and published findings; European and non-European business interests (from digital infrastructure to service providers) are researching, employing lobbyists and taking position, while lawyers and accountants are readying themselves for streams of income. US interests are not on the side-lines, in fact market makers and leaders such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (GAFA) are the most visible piece of this DSM influencing relationship, which the US Mission to the EU considers one of its top three priorities.