If you are planning to ship products internationally from Australia, we’ve got a beginner’s guide for you. Technological advancements have helped small businesses grow in leaps and bounds in Australia and abroad. WooCommerce is one such platform that powers a large number of new store owners to start their own e-commerce site and benefit from the international markets. And, then there are liberal trade agreements which make imports and exports easier than ever. So you can assume that this is probably the best time to go global with your business.
Shipping internationally brings a number of potential benefits. Let’s take a look at the 5 best reasons you should consider selling your products and services globally.
Best Reasons to Go International
If you have gained a fair amount of customer base in the mainlands, international markets can be your new target. Here are the five top reasons you should start exporting internationally.
- Revenue and Growth
- Scale for Efficiency
- Eliminate the Risk of Single Market
- Exposure to New idea and Innovation
- Better Opportunities
Revenue and Growth
If you are a successful business in Australia, there are high chances that your products and services will be appreciated by global customers too. There is no doubt that products perform well in markets where there a similar customer base. For instance, the US and China, the UK and Japan which have a similar customer base as Australia, are the first markets for Australian online store owners. Further, neighboring countries like Singapore and Malaysia are the leading markets in the developing countries where the population is highly influenced by the Australian products and services.
Australia has a population of around 24 million, which is nowhere close to 261.1 million in Indonesia. So any share of the customer base in the huge international markets will impact your sales a lot. But knowing the size of the market is not enough, you’ll need to understand the purchasing power and the purchasing trends of the customers in these target markets. You can apply different pricing strategies and go for local partnership for distribution of your products. This will help you reach your overseas customers more effectively.
It is also important to segregate markets based on products. For instance, the US is a great market for merchandise and accessories while it will be a bad idea if you consider China a probable market for your technology products where people instead, love Australian wine.
Scale for Efficiency
Your growth around the world becomes the scale of your efficiency. You can check the change of efficiencies in departments like sales, production, shipping, and marketing.
Based on your business trends you can frame new strategies to expand further. As your business grows in size new opportunities arise. For instance, you get discounted pricing plans by Australia Post, which will reduce your shipping expenditure. You can also save expenses by automating your warehouse. Your global presence may provide you with opportunities for establishing production units or warehouses in different countries. This will reduce your economic inputs in production and shipping. Overall, you can devise your growth strategy with the help of insights from your current performance.
Studies show that local online stores in Australia are generating as much as 20% of their revenue through international trade.
Eliminate the Risk of Single Market
If you are operating in a single market, your business is prone to high competition and recession in the market. This is also accompanied by market saturation which leads to the reduction in demand for a particular product.
Heading to international markets can help you fight stiff competition, recession, and market saturation. International trade also allows you to bring new factors to your sales possibilities. You can target different climates and festivals around the world to gain more online buyers. For instance, you can continue selling a trendy sweatshirt to a cold country even if it is summer in Australia. Further, since Australia is a developed economy, many of the products may not find their use in the local market anymore. So a new market in the developing economies will keep the product alive. This will also give you time to rethink and redesign the products which are experiencing lesser demands.
Exposure to New idea and Innovation
E-commerce has opened gates to international markets. Not only you get new customers and markets, but you also get to observe and track the peers in competition. You can do an extensive research on various international brands which are performing great in the field of marketing, customer service, product management, and other deciding areas. This is important as there is always room for improvement and you can keep on learning new things in today’s world.
As time pass, you’ll understand exports in a better way, leading to higher profits. Your global presence may also become the reason for an incoming investment. All such efforts will help you thrive in your business and stay in the competition.
Better Opportunities
As you set your foot in overseas markets, it makes yours a desirable business. Owning an international will inspire your current employees and attract more prospective employees in the future. So, adding new individuals or teams who specialize in international shipping will strengthen your shipping strategy.
Along with this, your international presence is going to make your brand more visible in the local market. A strategic effort in marketing and public relations regarding this will also help you enrich your band value among existing customer base.
Getting Your Products and Services Ready
Compliance
International shipping standards may vary from the domestic shipping standards in Australia. So you might need an entirely different set of documents for customs and label specifications. Australia Post helps its customers to streamline these complications during the customs check with personalized support.
In case WooCommerce, ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking helps you integrate Australia Post services to your WooCommerce store. With this plugin, you can create fully compliant shipping labels and commercial invoices that include the Australian Harmonised Export Commodity Classification (AHECC) code. You can enter the AHECC code to each product in the Products tab in your WordPress Dashboard. This saves a lot of time and effort, letting you focus on other important tasks.
Updating Product Features
You should consider many checkpoints before framing your export strategy. To start with, if your product has a user manual, make sure it includes instruction in the native language. For instance, if you are shipping products to China, it would be nice if the instruction manual or the labels on the products are in Chinese. This also follows for countries like the UAE, Japan, India, and other countries where a majority of customers speak and understand native languages. You should be concerned about the images you are using on the products as some images may be offensive to your probable customers.
It should be followed by different label printing guidelines for different countries. You may require to print labels in different sizes and in different languages to pass the customs check in selected countries.
Packing should be your prime focus when shipping internationally. As the packages carry the product and the image of your brand, it should durable, packed and labeled correctly. If the package requires some necessary international standards, you should have it changed accordingly. Additionally, you can use the package to show respect to the culture and values of the destination country by putting messages in the local language or pasting artworks valued in those countries.
Strategy for Product Pricing in International Markets
The success of your international business depends a lot on your product pricing strategy. The prices of a particular product are affected by the customs duties, marketing & shipping expenses, and domestic taxes. So these all factors that add to your expenses should be accounted in the pricing for a profitable business in the destination country.
Different strategies that can be used for pricing are:
- Cost-plus Pricing – Product prices include all expenses per unit and the profit margin on top of that.
- Demand-Based Pricing – Pricing that fluctuates based on the demand and supply. It requires a bit of research on your competitors’ pricing and previous purchasing activities of your customers.
- Marginal Costing – It is a direct costing strategy where you divide the price regulators into variables and fixed regulators. For instance, expenses in human resource, distribution, and marketing can be fixed regulators while the production costs, the variable taxes etc. can be the variable price regulators.
You should remember two simple rules that can summarize your pricing strategy.
- Markets regulate the price – The prices offered in the local market are the first benchmark for pricing your product. Alternatively, if you are offering a better product, you can go for your own pricing. In any case, the pricing strategy should include the buyer’s purchasing power and their need for a particular product or services. Selling a product based on quality and features rather than experimenting with pricing gives you n upper hand.
- Prices should cover all the expenses including the Profit – The entire idea behind a successful business is to make a profit. Until you are making a profit, you are successful. Any expense incurred in shipping activities can be either included in the price of products or use a transparent real-time rate quote by Australia Post. ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking provides an automated shipping management from within WooCommerce.
How Australia Post Helps with International Shipping
When you do your initial research, it should also include the list of resources that are going to help during the entire process. Australia Post is one such resource for WooCommerce store owners in Australia. It provides an online API of its services for WooCommerce, which is a fully automated way of adding Australia Post services to a WooCommece store.
Australia Post helps you manage both domestic and international shipping under its expert guidance. It also provides a wide range of tutorials for packaging, marketing and ways to expand your business overseas. Australia Post especially helps you in the fields of:
- Customs and duties compliance – As your carrier, Australia Post takes care of all compliances and duties for the packages
- Restricted and prohibited goods – You can also use Australia Post as a source of information when it comes to finding the list of products that are restricted in some countries. It provides detailed information on such restrictions which helps you ship your products without fail.
- Packing – Packing of products for international shipments require extra care. Other than this you need to follow different packing guidelines as per the destination country. For instance, Australia Post helps you achieve perfect packing and labeling for packages containing fruits, to be shipped to your customers in China.
- Contracted Rates – It provides customized pricing solutions for Australia Post postages based on your Business size. Get the complete Australia Post pricing guide here.
You can contact your Australia Post representative for any support with your Australia Post MyPost Business account.
ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking
ELEX’s WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking is a complete solution for your shipping needs. The plugin works with both a personal and MyPost Business account, but the label printing feature is available for business account holders only. If you have this contracted rate account from Australia Post, you just need to enter your API password and the account number to get started.
Features of WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking
- Live Shipping Rates for Domestic and International destinations
- Multiple Packing Methods which included box and weight-based packing
- Select Services and their Availability
- Printing Shipping Labels
- Automatic Shipment Tracking
- Extra Services
- Dangerous goods declaration and commercial invoice for international shipping
- Signature option
- Insurance cover
- Show cheapest shipping rates to your customers
- Customize service names and additional adjustments to real-time rates
- Australia Post Extra Service including Satchels
- Compatible with WooCommerce 3.0
- The license entitles 1 year of support & updates which can be renewed at a 20% discount
- You are protected by our 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
You can get the complete list of features and a detailed setup guide to gain more insights into the plugin.
Closing Comments
When you start selling your products and services to international customers, you’ve to consider a lot of factors. You need to identify the correct opportunity and the right information. Getting the relevant information and suggestions from different sources remains a deciding factor. Hope this article provides enough insights to your business strategy.
You can contact our online support for any technical issues or a pre-sales query.
To explore more details about the plugins, go check out ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking.
Read the article for setting up Australia Post to understand the plugin, in detail. Or check out the product documentation section for more related articles.
You can also check out other WooCommerce and WordPress plugins in ELEX.
