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Selling online from North America to Latin America

A grow­ing number of U.S. online retailers and consumer brand manufacturers are taking that challenge on by setting up shop and selling online in Latin America.

It wasn’t quite the same as graduating from the e-commerce school of hard knocks, but after six years of trial and error Tradercom USA Inc. has learned some valuable lessons about what works—and what doesn’t—in selling online in Latin America.

In 2006, Tradercom CEO Federico Torres set out to build an online retailing business in Latin America from a base in the U.S. To carve out a niche in Latin America’s growing business-to-consumer e-commerce market, which eMarketer estimates will grow about 110% from $29.70 billion in 2011 to $62.42 billion in 2016, Tradercom had ambitious plans to build a web store in multiple countries and offer steep discounts on well-known American products such as Fossil watches and Weber grills that are not always available through merchants in Latin America.

Latin America E-Commerce - Selling Online to Latin America

Latin America E-Commerce – Selling Online to Latin America

But selling online in a foreign country is never easy, especially in Latin America, a fast-growing and still-developing e-commerce arena where U.S. merchants face several substantial barriers to entry, including big tariffs and government red tape, sketchy local delivery options, and plenty of cultural differences. “There is a huge opportunity for U.S. web merchants such as us to develop a significant e-commerce business in Latin America, but there are significant challenges that we had to work our way through.” Torres says. “It took us a long time, lots of patience and a willingness to always try a new approach to build up a steady base of shoppers.”

Today Tradercom is an estab­lished and growing online retailing company. The e-retailer carries a web inventory of about 100,000 SKUs and sells online in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. Sales for the web-only retailer are on track to reach $8 million in 2012, double its 2011 sales.

Tradercom is one of a grow­ing number of U.S. online retailers and consumer brand manufacturers setting up shop and selling online in Latin America. The market already includes 25 U.S. companies ranked in the Top 300 Latin America, which in 2011 had combined web sales of $1.43 billion, up 32.4% from $1.08 billion in the prior year.

And more North American online retailers are seriously eyeing Latin America for a new interna­tional opportunity or expanding their existing base of operations. For example Apple Inc. (No. 11), which has been selling computer hardware online in Latin America for several years, in December 2011 launched an iTunes store with a catalog of 20 million song titles for Brazil and 15 other countries in Latin America.

Consumers in Latin America also are big fans of mobile commerce and social media, and looking to conve­niently shop online for the products they can’t find in local stores, says Kent Allen, principal and founder of The Research Trust, a San Francisco-based e-commerce and retailing industry research firm with clients in the U.S. and Latin America. “There’s only a handful of global e-commerce markets left where there are still lots of ground-floor opportunities to be the next category-killer web store, hot niche player or even the next Amazon, and that’s Latin America,” Allen says. “E-commerce in Brazil, Mexico and other parts of the region are still in an early growth stage and that’s attracting the attention of lots of U.S. merchants.”

Source: Internet Retailer

#wordsofwisdom

#wordsofwisdom

Latinas, Social Media and Buzz influence

How much do you know about Latinas online habits? This Social Media and Buzz study unveils key purchase + influence patterns to marketing success.

One does not simply ignore Latino women - Aragorn

One does not simply ignore Latino women – Aragorn

63% of the women interviewed use Orkut, Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks to search for information before purchasing a product or service. Books, magazines and electronics are the categories consulted the most.

Latinas consult with their social network before they make a purchase

Women now represent the majority of users of social networks in the world, a trend that continues to grow. And they do not use these networks just to communicate with friends and family, read on subjects of interest or for academic or professional purposes. Every day more women search for information on products and services on their social networks.

A survey of 3,274 women from 18 to 60 years old, residents of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and U.S. Latinas, conducted by Sophia Mind, a market intelligence company, indicates that 63% of these women use social media to gather information before making a purchase, and for 70% of them the probability of purchasing a major product or service increases if it is recommended by a social media friend.

Electronics are the products most consulted by them – 66% consider important to exchange information on them on the web before committing to their purchase. Forty eight per center do the same with magazines and books; 47 %, with songs; 45 %, with movies and products related to tourism; and 42 % with cosmetics.

Jewelry is an exception, the great majority of Latinas (89 %) believes this is a personal choice.

Social Media and Buzz Influence

Social Media and Buzz Influence

Brazilians (66 %) and latin americans (56 %) are the greatest contributors and generators of buzz influence as they share most to their experiences in social media recommending or not a product or service. In all of the countries surveyed the rate of positive comments was greater than the negative. Another similarity amongst the women in these countries is that 50% of them may give up a purchase if a product or service is not well rated in social media networks.

Social Media and Buzz influence regarding Latina purchasing decisions

In Argentina, the United States and Mexico, 87% of women cite Facebook as the most influential. And 25% of them say they have already made purchases based on comments or indications of friends of that social network. Twitter appears in second place, with a 17% buzz influence. Advertising also has greater influence on Facebook: 18% of the respondents have already purchased products based on messages or announcements viewed on this channel. Also, on Facebook, one in five women have already withdrawn from making a purchase due to negative buzz about a product or service.

In Brazil, Orkut remains as the social network with greater penetration amongst women: 85 %. Sonic, Twitter and Facebook are tied in second place, with approximately 21 %. Twenty-nine percent of brazilians have made purchases in Orkut based on announcements or messages of companies and 21% are no longer using some products because of negative comments.

Cry as hard as you want to, but just make sure that when you stop crying, you never cry for the same reason again

Cry as hard as you want to, but just make sure that when you stop crying, you never cry for the same reason again

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