As shopping journeys become more fragmented and discovery becomes increasingly borderless, international demand is reaching brands faster than many are operationally prepared to support it at scale. As a result, for many brands, international growth has become less of a market-entry challenge and more of an execution challenge.International e-commerce depends on pricing, payments, duties, taxes, compliance, delivery, returns and fulfillment systems working across markets — often involving multiple teams, vendors and platforms at the same time. When shoppers experience friction around those operational layers, they become hesitant to complete purchases — constraining growth on a global scale.
According to ESW Signals, new research based on more than 23,000 consumers across 18 markets finds that nearly half of U.S. consumers cite shipping costs as a barrier to international purchases, while more than half say long delivery times discourage them from buying from overseas retailers. This underscores how e-commerce conversions are sensitive to cost, risk and confidence at the point of purchase.
“International growth used to be about expansion. Increasingly, it’s about execution. Customers already shop globally. The challenge is creating an experience they trust enough to complete the purchase,” said Tonia Luykx, Chief Revenue Officer at ESW. “Checkout is no longer just a transaction step. If brands haven’t reconsidered how checkout performs market by market in the last 12 months, there’s a good chance they’re already losing conversion.”
