The USA is a massive opportunity for British e-tailers. It is the UK’s biggest trading partner with 14.3% of all UK exports worth $57.5 billion ending up stateside.
This gives those of you running e-commerce businesses excellent opportunity to cash in on the US retail sector, but how do you work your way into the market and stand out?
Of course, you’re already on the front foot with the fact there are 239 million English speakers in the USA, meaning you can use similar websites, advertising creative and capitalise on the ‘cool Britannia’ image that still resonates across the world.
But, what about the market size you could tap into?
The U.S. is the headquarters of many ecommerce supergroups and marketplaces with a global reach and has the largest ecommerce retail sector of any other country.
Statistics reported by the Centre for Retail Research show the U.S. online retailing market share rose from 9.7% in 2012 to 18.8% in 2022. Much of this driven by more people shopping online due to COVID restrictions and the trend has continued.
New York based publication Fits Small Business has also pulled together the following interesting insights into consumer behaviours across the pond too
- Millennials are the largest group of online shoppers in the U.S. making up 20.2% of online shopper. The second-largest online shopper demographic was 35- to 44-year-olds, which accounted for 17.2% of US digital buyers.
- 6% of survey respondents prefer to shop online rather than in person.
- Free delivery is the leading incentive to drive purchases online. 53% of consumers said that free delivery would increase the likelihood of purchasing products online.
- 35% said reviews from other customers and 33% said easy returns policies influence their purchase decisions
- Online consumers read up to half a dozen product reviews before making purchase decisions
- The average spend of an online shopper in the US is $3.46 per visit across retail industry sectors such as luxury, active and general apparel, health and beauty, and home and appliances.
- Make sure your website is easy to navigate. 45% of US shoppers said making products easy to find is an important factor of the online shopping experience, alongside product descriptions and images.
- Mobile commerce is expected to account for almost 44% of US retail ecommerce sales by 2025. Forecasts show that by 2025, sales via a mobile device could reach $728.28 billion.
- 31% of US consumers use social media to discover products
- It is forecast that more than half of the adults in the US will make a purchase via social media, pushing social commerce sales to $45.74 billion.
- Click and collect sales reached more than $70 billion in 2020 and continues to gain popularity with nine out of 10 shoppers saying option is convenient.
- Cyber Monday is still the biggest online shopping day of 2021, with consumers spending a day’s worth during its Golden Hours (7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Pacific time) over $2.8 billion, which is nearly 50% more compared to the $1.9 billion spent on an average day in August. The Golden Hours brought in over 26% of the day’s revenue compared to an average of 14% on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
- As if to prove the earlier point about mobile purchases, 43% of online retail sales for the entire holiday season were made on smartphones
While these stats make an enticing case for entering the US market, they all have one major thing in common influencing the results and the most important factor in making your US expansion a success, the customer.
It doesn’t take much viewing of US TV and film to see that even with some dramatization, the US customer is possibly the most demanding, and they’re not afraid to tell you (and everyone else) if you get it wrong, but don’t let that put you off as it can work in your favour.
Research has shown that US consumers are not only demanding but are also disloyal, with 75% of them trying a new shopping channel and 36% of them trying new products in 36%.
This might sound like a negative, but it also shows that that you’re in the perfect position as the new kid on the block to entice those customers with new ideas and new products.
And that’s just what Asendia client, Chilly’s Bottles did.
U.S Case Study: Chilly’s Bottles
Chilly’s Bottles is a London based business, founded in 2010 by James Butterfield, who was later joined by digital marketing colleague Tim Bouscarle the following year.
They have a website localised for the U.S., which is almost a carbon copy of their UK site but displaying local currency and shipping information giving American consumers a local, home-grown, feel full of bright colours, images, and descriptions, it’s also fully mobile optimised – just as the tips above suggest.
As reported in HousewaresNews.net in 2020, Tim said: “We are striving to be the Nike or Adidas of the reusable world, helping people change their habits but not sacrificing the quality of the products they have to do so.”
They are now making massive global success, shipping to 32 countries including the U.S and it’s making them a massive player in the sector across the globe.
Commercial intelligence organisation, SkyQuest Technology Group, has even included Chilly’s Bottles as a top player in their Global Reusable Water Bottle Market Insights report published in November 2022.
This is no doubt down to the way Chilly’s has made the most of the opportunities available in the U.S. market, and the global reusable water bottle market which is expected to reach USD 11.70 billion by 2028.
You can follow in Chilly’s footsteps
As we’ve mentioned above, you’re already ahead of the game as a UK company as you’re still talking to English speaking customers.
You need not do much to retain your image and localise it to your new target market.
You could change some of the text to American-English spellings, and even mix it up with different landing page or hero images, but even if you don’t do that, your e-commerce platform, like Shopify or eShopWorld, will work out local currency, shipping and taxes quite easily and you can still achieve success.
The biggest factor that U.S. customers put above anything else, as highlighted above, is service. That means your new customers need to get what they’ve purchased quickly, cheaply and with confidence it can be returned easily and preferably for free.
To help support Chilly’s Bottle entry into the U.S., Asendia helps handle the returns and shipping for their products, which are manufactured in the UK.
Asendia's fulfilment centre in Bedford provides everything Chilly's needs under one roof.
This includes flexible storage and pick and pack services that can be scaled. Asendia takes care of international distribution for them to 30 countries, including domestic UK distribution, on-site printing of bottles and also engraving for Co-Brand customers and personalised bottles.
Using Asendia’s e-PAQ parcel services, with reliable end-to-end tracking, customer notifications, and cost-effective pricing, Chilly’s Bottles has a strong customer service offering and their TrustPilot ratings speak for themselves.
Of course, this solution works for Chilly’s Bottles but with a fulfilment centre based in the USA, as well as more in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong, the options that are available to your business are almost limitless, as are the markets they could help you grow into.
To hear how Asendia could help you make the most of the USA, drop us a line.
