Going GlobalConsiderations for global ecommerce architecture

Ilya Vinogradsky

Why go global?

SCALING →

Top countries with online users

245

82

513 101

121

What to keep in mind going global

Each geography has particular nuances in each of the following areas:

— Language

— Currency

— Pricing

— Taxation

— Shipping methods and calculation rules

— Payment methods 

— User experience

— Name and number of fields

— Numbers

— Dates

— Form validation 

— Order management/Fulfillment 

— Integrations with 3rd parties

— Search Engines and Social Networks

Language

— European languages are left to right

— Middle Eastern languages are right to left

— Asian languages are either right to left of up down

— Same words in different languages take up different amount of space on screen

Currency

— Different currency symbols ($₤€₱₴₳)

— Different number separators (, .)

Pricing

— Pricing in different countries is different

— Pricing in US usually ends with .99 while in other countries ends with .00

— Some countries don’t show fractions at all

Taxation

— Tax rules often change— US merchant is supposed to charge taxes at location of store/warehouse

— In Europe each country has different rules for taxation

Crocs (NY State) Crocs (GB) Crocs (ESP)

Shipping methods and calculation rules

Shipping methods

— In US most typical are Standard (5-7 days delivery), Expedited (2 days), Overnight (1 day)

— In Eastern Europe and Asia Cash on Delivery is very important

Calculations

— Can be done by a standard shipping table

— By integration with shipping provider

— Some companies offer free shipping for online orders

Payment methods

User Experience

Different expectations:

— Name and number of fields

— Numbers

— Dates

— Form validation

Order Management/Fulfillment

─ If each geographies grow independently it’s very common to have different Order Management

systems

─ Integration with all of these order management system may be difficult

─ Standardization of a single Order Management system for multiple geographies can save time, but is

not realistic everywhere due to valid business reasons, as well as internal company politics

Integration with 3rd parties

analytics, product reviews, product recommendations, address verification, tag management, shopping comparison engines,

order auto replenishment, video hosting, social

Multiple ways to architect the solution

Hybrid way to architect the solution

Single global solution – Option 1

Single website that mostly focuses on your primary market, but allows orders from other geographies to be placed and fulfilled.

Basic approach: keep everything, including single currency and language, but add ability to ship

globally

Pros:

─ Least expensive solution─ Cheaper to maintain from development

and business point of view─ Single code base ─ Hosted in one location─ Shipping from one global location─ Minimal changes to functionality of the

site, forms manipulation─ Minimal requirements for ecommerce

platform

Cons:

─ Low conversion rate for customers coming from other geographies

─ User experience cannot be fully optimized─ Shipping costs are high to secondary

geographies─ Doesn’t accommodate local payment

methods─ Search engines will not rank site high in

non-primary geographies─ Site loads slower in secondary

geographies, because of Internet latency (can be mitigated somewhat by using Content Delivery Networks such as Akamai)

Single global solution – Option 2

Single website that mostly focuses on your primary market, but accommodates languages and pricing for secondary markets and allows orders from other geographies to be placed and fulfilled.

Basic approach: keep everything, add currency and language options, ability to ship globally

Pros:

─ Single code base ─ Hosted in one location─ Shipping from one global location─ Minimal changes to functionality of the

site, forms manipulation─ Minimal requirements for ecommerce

platform

Cons:

─ Conversion rate for customers coming from other geographies is better, but still lower than from primary geography

─ User experience cannot be fully optimized─ Shipping costs are high to secondary

geographies─ Doesn’t accommodate local payment

methods─ Search engines will not rank site high in

non-primary geographies─ Site loads slower in secondary

geographies, because of Internet latency (can be mitigated somewhat by using Content Delivery Networks such as Akamai)

─ A little more expensive to maintain than Option 1

─ Business team must provide translations and pricing for each geography as well as maintain site content for each language

Single global solution (Option 2)

Architecture requirements:

Requirements for ecommerce platform

— Single ecommerce site

— Multiple languages

— Multiple currencies

— Multiple price lists – one for each geography

Requirements for site implementation

— Manipulation of site forms to accommodate each geography

— Implementation of geography and language selection manually or based on geo location

— Page implementation to accommodate different length of words within same area of the page

— Integration with payment gateway that accepts multiple currencies

Separate solution for each geography

Multiple sites – each fully customized to the needs of each locale

Basic approach: each new site is a full copy of the existing code base, which is customized and managed separately going forward.

Pros:

─ Accommodates all needs of each geography fully

─ Simple development architecture─ Can be managed by each individual local

team─ No network latency when each site is

hosting in dedicated locale

Cons:

─ High cost for implementation, hosting and maintenance

─ Not a lot of code reuse─ No centralized control over branding,

technical direction and functionality

Hybrid: Shared architecture with customizations

Components based architecture (Reference Application) that can be easily customized and configured for plugging in and out features and integrations.

Provides 80+% functionality needed to launch sites internationally.

Provides standard storefront and user experience optimized for brands user base.

Multiple sites built on top of shared Ref App code base with some site specific customizations.

Ref App Approach

Ref App Evolution – V1

Ref App Evolution – V2

Ref App Evolution – V3

Ref App Pros/Cons

Pros:

─ Very flexible architecture

─ Significant code reuse

─ Allows for locale specific

customizations

─ Hosted in one location

─ Significant saving in effort and time for

large (50+ site) global rollout

Cons:

─ Requires advanced ecommerce platform

─ Complex architecture

─ Requires strong centralized management

and global vision

Conclusion

— Size

— Internal Management Structure

— Financing

— Ambitions

— Vision

Architectural approach should be selected based on each companies