By Dan Leberman, Vice President, GM of North America SMB Core/Online Business, PayPal
PayPal is heading back out on the road with our SMB series Engage – an event aimed at connecting face-to-face with our merchants and working together to help grow their businesses. Our Engage events bring together small businesses, experts and local entrepreneurs to share successes, failures, and lessons for improving eCommerce capabilities and building better businesses. This time we’re in Los Angeles and focused on helping small-to-medium sized businesses in the U.S. sell internationally, or what’s known as cross-border trade.
A recent PayPal and Nielsen study found that more than 130 million shoppers will make cross-border purchases from the U.S., China, the UK, Australia, Germany, and Brazil by 2018. By 2025, the amount emerging-market consumers will spend will grow to $30 trillion, according to a report from McKinsey Global Insights. The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) also noted that 95 percent of U.S. businesses exporting goods internationally are small or mid-sized, and all will have to navigate complex and challenging global logistics to be successful. Given the huge opportunity, PayPal wants to give businesses the resources to tap into this emerging market now. One example is our recently launched PassPort, a free online resource designed to educate and empower small businesses with tools to expand their global sales. PassPort helps businesses learn about local customs, trends, and shipping tips to get started selling internationally.
What Are the Top Ten U.S. Cities that Sell Internationally?
Today, at our Engage LA event, we shared PayPal’s top ten U.S. cities for global sales and the top categories for each. These American cities are leveraging PayPal technology and free resources to help drive their international sales and streamline the process for themselves and their customers around the globe:
One PayPal merchant, Fashionphile, is seeing their sales grow tremendously by selling internationally. Owner Sarah Davies tells her story here:
Where Business Should Focus Right Now
Immediate Q4/Holiday Focus - We pinpointed the five PayPal countries—Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia and France—that purchase the most from the U.S. during Q4 and holiday season. These represent countries of strong growth potential for cross-border trade and are where U.S. businesses and focus to maximize sales during the critical holiday buying season.
Some more interesting global sales nuggets from our data include:
Holidays: The top five countries all have strong holiday shopping seasons. Synergy: Many of our U.S. cross-border selling cities overlap with our online top ten U.S. cities. East vs. West: The West Coast is currently dominating in cross-border sales, while the East Coast has room to capitalize on the opportunity. City Variety: Cities such as Columbus, OH may not be as obvious, but make sense due to the amount of fashion retailers in the area.
Today’s Event – Engage LA
Engage LA will feature a special roundtable discussion about cross-border opportunities in the U.S. and abroad moderated by Gene Marks (columnist for the New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Inc. and Entrepreneur) with small business evangelist Ramon Ray, Department of Commerce representative Rachid Sayouty, and entrepreneurs Nick Martin of The Pro’s Closet and Chris Ko of Nationwide Surplus. Ramon and Rachid will also host a breakout session on cross-border tips for SMBs.
These events reinforce PayPal’s commitment to small businesses since it pioneered online shopping nearly 15 years ago. As the business environment evolves and cross-border opportunities grow almost exponentially, we continue to innovate with new products and services to support merchants as they build their international businesses.
Selling local can mean something different for everyone. Wherever local is for you in this global ecommerce economy, we’re looking forward to helping you find a solution!
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