For most small business owners, shipping overseas sounds too complicated to consider. However, there are ways to do business globally without having to deal with all of the different rules and regulations. Shipwire is one service that helps small businesses participate in the global marketplace and the folks at Shipwire took the time to give some great answers to a few related interview questions.
How and Why Did Shipwire Begin?
"Damon Schechter, CEO and founder of Shipwire, realized that there was no service that allowed a small business to plug their Web site and inventory into a global warehouse network with the ease that they could use other internet functionality to improve business processes, such as with the services Google Adwords or PayPal. Before Shipwire it was incredibly time consuming for a business to find a warehouse, typically involving many contracts with hidden fees and pitfalls. Also, for the most part, warehouses don’t understand the speed and complexity of today’s global ecommerce business.
It also became obvious that most small online retailers and product entrepreneurs could not gain the supply chain efficiencies of an Internet 500 retailer or major supplier. These large brands leverage multiple geographically distant warehouses around the world to store inventory closer to major markets and transportation hubs in order to cut their shipping costs and delivery timelines to buyers.
Shipwire was created to eliminate the hassles of storage and shipping for merchants so that they can focus on growing their business. A merchant can start a Shipwire free trial, plug the Store-Sell-Ship™ platform into their Web store, eBay auctions and Amazon accounts and test Shipwire with up to six completed orders, without ever taking their wallet out of their pocket. End-to-end test the solution, from there, a merchant can easily schedule a container for receiving and pay only for resources that they use. Better yet, a merchant can do this with warehouses in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Shipwire is designed to be used by growing businesses with the same easy-to-use, on-demand, pay only for what you use structure that every merchant has grown used to with Google, PayPal, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo. Instead of buying leads, auctions or payment, merchants are now renting warehouses around the world, cutting their shipping costs and growing international ecommerce businesses."
Why should Small Businesses Consider Going Global?
"'Growth' and 'Opportunity' as online retail becomes more pervasively global and ecommerce is seeing great momentum outside of the US, small businesses can’t afford to miss this opportunity. Entrepreneurs are building global brands that require global distribution. Many businesses are being pulled overseas by buyers that want niche product or by higher retail price points that can be found is overseas markets.
For example, a recent report by Verdict Research estimates that U.K. e-commerce sales will increase at a Combined Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of over 10%. The U.K.’s e-commerce sales are forecast to grow 13.3% to over $34.4B (U.S.). The drivers for this growth are increased Internet adoption and increased e-commerce adoption by more affluent online buyers.
The problem has been reaching these overseas markets with cost effective shipping and reasonable shipping timelines. Testing the market by shipping individual parcels from the U.S. to individual buyers in Europe is expensive, laden with customs and VAT tax risks and returns just are not feasible. Growing the business overseas requires a global supply chain with local storage, shipping and returns. For that a small business needs a partner and help navigating the VAT/Customs and parcel shipping intricacies.
If businesses want to capture a piece of that growing U.K. market they must offer U.K. buyers local shipping from a local fulfillment center. That is where Shipwire comes in. We have warehouse distribution centers in the U.K. Businesses can now easily store inventory in the United Kingdom and then ship U.K. orders from their local warehouse outside of London. If a business needs a product to be returned, they can easily have it shipped back to the U.K. warehouse. No international shipping charges and the business dealt with the VAT/customs duties hassles up front before the buyer was ever involved."
Now that small business owners understand the importance of going global, they'll need to decide whether a business that has a world wide customer base is right for them. Is their company one of the business types that really need to go global to thrive?
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