Ecommerce Internationalization with Sarah Sennett

Hello and welcome to E Commerce Growth Stories. This is your hostess with the mostest, Juliana Jackson, aka the CLV lady. And also I am the Chief Evangelist for OmniConvert.

And this is Valentin Radu, CEO of OmniConvert. Thank you for tuning in today for a new episode of ecommerce growth stories.

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E commerce business a boost. And it's not Thursday, it's Tuesday. And we are recording the last episode of this season of ecommerce growth Stories. I think is the 30th episode and I'm super excited because I'm going to end the end it with a great blow of internationalization. I have here with me today Sarah Sennett, the head of agency marketing at Swanky. Sarah, how are you doing?

I'm really good, thank you. It's so nice to be here and awesome to be ending the season with you guys. Especially on our favorite topic.

Valentin, how do you feel ending this season of become more growth stories? How do you feel today?

I feel hot because I've just the air conditioning so that is not making noise. But besides that, I'm excited to finish this series and yeah, let's make it happen. Sarah, thank you for being today with us. Let us know how you've learned it in the e commerce space.

Yeah, kind of by part by accident, part by a long road. So my first e Commerce experience was way back when I had a small stationery shop that was on a little WordPress instance with WooCommerce and I was just happily nerding out with my love of all things paper and stationery because I just. Yeah, that's me. So that was many moons ago. And then in my digital marketing career, I have been at Swanky now for about Eight months or so. So, yeah, still pretty new to the space, but I've been in agency land and client and in house, you know, all around the. All around the place in digital marketing roles. But, yeah, I'm with Swanky for eight months and just getting my head around a lot of what we're doing and a lot of our CL work. And, yeah, it's a wild ride this year has just absolutely exploded for us. So we're on our own growth trajectory at the moment.

That's super cool. I want to ask you for everyone that listens right now or watches this right now and they don't know who Swanky, tell us, what is Swanke Agency and what does Swanky do?

Sure.

Yeah. So Swanky is one of the first three Shopify plus agencies in the uk. We're one of the top three. And we build Shopify stores exclusively. And so we have a couple of different service propositions within that. We do, obviously, the build and migration. We also do growth services. So an existing brand on a platform could come to us and say, I just want you to do my growth. I just want you to do my digital marketing. Or we can go full service. I want to migrate into Shopify. I want you to take my business to the next level. And that happens across our two locations in UK and Australia. Australia. And we are soon this year coming to France as well, which will be very exciting.

Oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah, this is a very difficult market in E commerce.

Yeah, it's going to be really interesting, but we've seen an opportunity there and we've got some good contacts and. Yeah, and we're really lucky that we have a diverse sense of the market, but also the staffing to match that. So we have quite a few French speakers in the business. I'm not one of them. Just before you start questioning me in.

French, how did you know I was gonna do that? Did I have that?

Yeah. I could see this conversation was about to switch languages and I thought I can just about tell you my name in French. So I have a lot of learning to do.

Cool. Then I'm gonna French it up.

Yeah.

So I want to talk today about internationalization. So you guys, back in May, if I'm not mistaken, you guys dropped the bomb in the e commerce market with the, like, literally the bump, because it's a huge document.

Y.

You dropped this ebook about e Commerce Internationalization. 101. 1, 1, 2, 1. Whatever you want to call it. But it's probably. I'm gonna sound like Cartersburg right now. But it's probably the best piece on internationalization out there right now. So if you're listening to this on Apple or whatever, go in the episode notes and you will find this book on internationalization. You should download it and be grateful because it's very good. But just to start off with this conversation, Tomi Sara, that's listening right now. How can you define internationalization in the e commerce space?

Yeah, sure. So there's a couple of different ways of thinking about it. Internationalization could be taking a completely new product or a completely new brand into a new market, or it could be taking your existing business into a new market. So either way, whenever you think about internationalization, you've got your domestic market that you would typically sell to in the same country as your operation. But internationalization is about the taking the whole operation to a different locality.

Do you think this is something that's widely understood?

I'm gonna go with no. I'm gonna go with no. And I also think there's a lot of fear around it just because there are so many potential moving parts and it is not an easy thing to do, otherwise everybody would be doing it. But we, in this behemoth document that we have put out all 118 pages of it is the 101 guide to how to do it. And it's definitely not without the input of our partners like Juliana who have the expertise to make this happen for businesses.

Sarah, I have a question regarding what type of companies are you seeing differentiating themselves with internationalization? Because at the end of the day, you can build a differentiation through building new products on the same market, or you can other markets with the same product, or you can be completely crazy and go with different products, different markets. But from your perspective so far, what type of companies are the most courageous and open towards internationalization?

That's a really good question. What companies are the most open? I think it comes down to whether the product market fit is right. And if the research is there and the company has the intelligence to say that this will probably work, then you know, there is a platform there to be bold and to make the investment in trying to go international. I mean, there's no brands immediately springing to mind.

For me, I'm not referring to brands, but are there pure players or established companies? Is there a pattern over there or simply grow?

No, there's no real pattern to speak of. I don't think. I think it's very much down to the position of the business. And as Juliana would advocate Whether the product is right for the market. I think think whatever intelligence any business had pre 18 months ago, you, you pretty much just have to discount because we are living in a different world. Consumers are very different, behaviors are very different. What I am seeing in terms of response to online activity, to promotions is that there's a lot of unexpected things happening. You know, previous benchmarks that we would have thought would be pretty well set in stone just aren't. It's not the same deal anymore. So I think consumers have changed a lot over the last 18 months. And, you know, I think any research prior to that, you've got to take with a sensible judgment on your head as to, whether. As to whether it's still valid or not.

So let's say I'm an E Commerce brand. I'm a direct to consumer brand. I'm in the UK right now and I'm selling, I don't know, jeans. I manufactured these jeans. People are buying them, they're excited, they look good in them. What? And I'm thinking, I wake up one morning and I say, you know what, I'm gonna go and sell in Germany or in France. What are the top three worst mistakes that I will do in this process? Like, what are the three things that I should absolutely not do when I'm going to start about, you know, thinking about internationalization and actually implementing this around my company?

I think the first thing is the tendency to go too big too quickly so you don't have to. The worst mistake would be to invest an absolute ton of money in an international operation before you've tested the market, before you've tested the infrastructure, before you tested your marketing. So all of those jigsaw pieces that need to come together to work all cost money. So the first biggest mistake I would say that is going to set a business up for a fail is putting too much in upfront. There are very simple ways to test a market and very accessible ways to test a market. So I would encourage that approach rather than the go big or go home type style. I think the second biggest approach is not localizing for the market. Second biggest mistake, sorry, not localizing. So, you know, it might be, you know, we know that a lot of, a lot of marketing in Germany can go out in English because the propensity for Germans to speak English is quite high. But that's not going to lead to equally strong brand engagement. So you definitely need to localize your content. Particularly, you know, if you're a jeans manager factor in the UK and you're talking about going to Germany and you've got your marketing, a lot of stuff, you're going to have to adapt that for the German market. You know, the visuals are not going to look the same, the weather is not going to be the same. Yeah. In parts of Germany anyway. So yeah, not localizing your content and that includes local language as well. So you've got budget, you've got localization and not getting your customer experience right is the other big. Big. No, no. So if you really want to grow German market and you are a UK brand, you need to think about that end to end customer experience. And that includes fulfillment and shipping in particular. You know, customers don't necessarily want to wait for their products to be shipped from the uk Especially now that we're not part of the EU anymore, which is such a bummer and we could talk about for hours on end. But so you've got to think about maybe taking on a fulfillment partner and there's plenty of partners through Shopify that would allow merchants to do that on a relatively small scale. So yeah, I would say don't neglect your customer experience because that is what is going to make or break your international efforts.

I love it. I love it. So when is the right moment to go international? Like when should you internationalize?

Wow, that's. That has a lot of it depends attached to it. I think the biggest factor in all of that is when you've maxed out your domestic market. If you're at the point where you're still exploring your domestic market, you've still got things you could test, you've still got other segments you could market to. I would say it's probably not going to be the best use of your resources to try internationalization at that point if you're still testing and learning in your domestic market. So I'd say make sure you've maxed out your opportunity in domestic. That would be my first thought.

Yep. It makes perfect sense. And I remember I was reading in the, in the E book as well that at first, you know, you don't want to risk going across the board if you don't fully own the market that you're in and understand it and know how it works. Otherwise you're just going to spread yourself all over the place, but you're not going to get anywhere.

Yeah, definitely. And it will affect the business financially. You've got to think about those bottom line figures. So if you aren't steadily performing and growing in your domestic market, then internationalization might be a drain that could destabilize your domestic operations.

However, there are counterexamps as well. We. I remember that back in 2015, we. We worked with a brand which was in Bulgaria, which is a small country, and they've consciously decided to go on other markets. Their market was simply too small for them and worked out for. For them. They got into something like 11 countries. They've tested in all of them, like in the Czech Republic, in Poland, in Greece, in whatever. So they've just, instead of growing their advertising budget on the local market, they've tested out in those 10 other different markets. Eventually they've picked the winners. And I remember that our approach since that moment was not to look only at the sales, but also at the customer retention patterns and also at the nps. And by merging, by mixing things, like we've analyzed all the market penetration by looking at how many inhabitants are in the Slovak Republic, how are in Serbia, in all of those countries. And at the end they've consciously decided because their products were the same, right? So they've got like 3,000 SKUs. They were selling fashion and they've seen that the stickiness and the NPS was the decision factor. So eventually they've decided on which market to focus on their efforts in the next year by doing an algorithm between NPS customer retention and customer acquisition cost. And that eventually turned out very well for them because if they would be staying into their homeland, there is this thing called the advertising fatigue. So too much that you can do by adding another, I don't know, 20, 30% in your advertising budget, but going on other countries, if the logistics can help you, it can be the winning direction.

Yeah, definitely. That sounds like a really interesting project to have been a part of testing 11 different markets. Do they stick in all 11 of them?

No, no, no. They've closed. They've stayed like six months. They closed 5 of the markets and they eventually, they've stayed only in three different markets. Unfortunately for them, eventually they got out of business because they were gamblers. So those entrepreneurs, they've gambled something like, I think €800,000 in a stack of goods, and the customer retention wasn't there. So mainly there is this balance between how much you afford to go. But they used to be stock brokers for them, but it was quite a ride. I mean, in three years they've got 120 employees and they shut out the business and they've got to another chapter and they are. Well now. I mean, it's like the entrepreneurship, right? Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. The whole idea is to have fun.

Yeah, absolutely. I love that phrase. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. I'm a big fan of that because I don't think you ever fail unless you stop.

Yeah, you fail if you, if you think you fail because eventually in your mind.

Yeah, yeah.

How you look at things. Not.

Yeah.

Not the things in themselves. It's a, it's a game of perception and winning and losing. It's all in our minds. And unfortunately we are being taught since we are small kids, that it's bad to make a mistake. However, the human race has evolved only thanks to mistaking.

Yeah, absolutely. And as a marketer who enjoys testing things, you just can't be allergic to failure. It's so counterproductive. When I meet somebody who has either come from a culture or they've been encouraged to only do things that are likely to succeed, their imagination can be limited because they, they're always worried about the end results. I think you just can't, you can't experiment like that.

Yeah, it's eventually, it's how, how much can you afford to, to, to bet it's while you're aging. For instance, you, you can't, you can't work like when you were 20. Right.

So maybe when you definitely feel lot.

In your 20s, you can, I don't know, you can risk 95% of what you have. But when you are in your 30, 40, 50, then you are becoming not only attached, but your, your energy, your ability to start again is not that how it. It used to be. And I think that has a lot to do with the maturity levels of the companies. And too many companies I think looking at staying in their home markets. It's all about aging too quickly. So they become attached and to a traditional growth model. And that's why they are not placing bets on other countries. And I think this has to do with our own experience. I've been an E Commerce entrepreneur. I wanted to go regionally. My former, my former partner didn't want that to happen. So eventually I've been my own company to address the global market. So again, that was a winning formula. Even though at that moment I thought that this is not okay, you know, it's not okay for your partner not to go in to address other markets.

Talking about business models. So the basics of business development say that when you're trying to do something else like build a business unit, because going internationally means another business unit. That's how you take your business. You have to separate it from the core. So the core is the company. You know, the, the UK company, since that was the example selling jeans, they will have to go through some sort of operational transformation to be able to work in another market. Because if you're trying to disrupt a new market with a new product or a new approach with the same people, you're gonna end up disrupting yourself because those people that you have already are used to working in a way that is not the new market that you're trying to address. So from an operational perspective, what are, what, how does you know the to do list looks like for a company that you know, wants to sell internationally? From an operational perspective, I think once.

You'Ve got all of the, I guess the admin side of it sorted, like you were saying about having a separate company, potentially a separate funding line, you know, all of that stuff of which I'm not an expert, I think the main thing that's going to impact the success is the customer service. So being able to deliver customer service in native language is absolutely going to make or break your customer retention and overall nps, like we were talking about satisfaction reviews, you know, all of those things that come in the user journey after that purchase moment needs to be exceeding expectations. Otherwise what you're investing in is a set of one time purchases. And you're never gonna generate any brand awareness or brand sentiment by just doing one time purchases. You know, that's not going to be sustainable and acquisition costs will always be high. And you know, the, the ideal nirvana is that you get to a point where you've got a really loyal community who are advocating for your brand, who can get customer service promptly in their native language and it's, it, you know, becomes a self sustaining referral unit. I mean that would be just like, I mean, I'm not talking reality because how many times does that ever actually work in real life? But yeah, I think in terms of operations, customer service in the native language is, is absolutely one thing that I would prioritize. I mean you've obviously got to sort out things like fulfillment and shipping and packaging and all of those functional things. I'm not sure I understand. No, Siri's confused. I don't think you need to be part of this conversation. Siri, what was I saying? Oh yeah, so shipping and fulfillment, like all of those things are very functional, but from a brand perspective the customer service experience is very emotional and is, you know, that next level of engagement. So I think that's really important. That would be top of my list.

Yeah, I agree. And I think customer support is a very underlooked part of the business. Even in local markets it's always considered the cost center instead of a profit center.

And that's absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's an argument that I always find really, really odd thinking that customer support is a cost center because it's really not. You know, when you think about it as, because for me as a marketer I want to look at that whole end to end customer experience. It was like I was saying everything that comes in that moment post purchase. There's only so much that a marketer can do there. It's got to be about service and retention. If you're thinking that customer support is a cost center, then you really want to be thinking about the future of what that marketing budget looks like just to do a massive amount of acquisition. If you're not focusing on support and retention, it just is a no brainer to me.

100% like we're speaking the same language. And it's, it's. The problem is that, you know, brands, some brands are very inexperienced and they take the customer support people just to get rid of customers and their complaints and so on. Like they don't look at it as a productive channel to grow loyalty and build relationships. They just look at a channel like, okay, I gotta get rid of these people complaining about shipping times or where's my order. So if you just optimize that channel, forget about marketing, forget about any types of tactics and strategy. If you just do a decent customer support, that's a very good impact on your customer lifetime value and your customer retention. And I always like to mix the customer support part to the email marketing part because there are some sneaky things you can do there that are only going to produce delight and a great customer experience. So getting out of the context of internationalization. Let's talk about. So our sponsor Vitex sent me this question for you.

Oh, exciting.

Yeah. So they said this. Sarah, what are three things that really, really, really legit wrote really, really, really the guys are fun that excite you about E commerce today? So what are the future of E commerce today? Sorry, my bad. Cool.

Three things that excite me about the future of E commerce. I think one is the potential for future shopping experiences. So I'm really interested about how E commerce and retail and the balance between clicks and bricks is going to change. I don't think this is entirely my opinion but I don't think people are going to go into store for the same reasons that they used to. I think in the future you're going to go into a store because you want to somehow connect with the brand, you want to feel what they're about, you maybe want to get hands on with some of the products. But I don't think that is your purchase moment. I think the decision making and the purchase moment is going to happen online. And you know, all the stats are saying that E commerce is, you know, we're never going to go back to pre Covid levels, it's only going to go up from here. So if the store is playing a different role then surely the E commerce experience needs to up its game and play a different role. So I'm really interested to see what the online experiences are going to be like that are going to enable people to connect with products during that decision making phase. And I think we're right at the start of things like, you know, image search and shop the look. If you're thinking about fashion, I was on a call the other day with an app that you can just dump a photo of a product into the site and it will find all of the products that look similar right down to the details of the buckles on the boots. You know, if that's the bit you want to focus on, which I was like, I was just massively impressed with. And I think that's only the beginning. So that's one thing that really interests, trust me. I think how we market to people and what I mean by that is the data that we have available in order to market to people is going to be very different. I don't think there's going to be as much personalization in the pre purchase part of the journey because I think zero party data is going to have to be where we get our personalization information from. Which means by the time you're over the line and you've purchased, everything that we do in that retention journey is hopefully going to be where all the personalization sits or where all the effective stuff sits anyway. So I'm really interesting to see how that plays out. I think, I think brands are going to have to get a lot more savvy about the data they collect at purchase and work out what is meaningful for the customer to provide at different points. So that's gonna be fascinating for me as a marketer. I'm trying to, trying to think what my third slot could be because I feel like I've got a list this big.

I mean you can leave a tattoo, depends on you. But usually we like to see things.

In, we like to see things threes or fives isn't It.

Yeah, three or five.

Yeah, I think. I mean, we're already seeing this, you know, massive thing about unboxing and it's been a thing for such a long time. But I think there's going to be a moment where brands will either win or lose depending on that moment when it arrives, when a product arrives at somebody's door. Because the reason that I say that is they're so many things that you can buy that are dropshipped, that are not sent directly from the retailer. And I think part of the experience, especially when you're making a purchase, maybe we're talking like luxury and above purchases, maybe we're not talking about, you know, buying shower gel from Amazon or whatever. But I think that moment, that unboxing moment has a massive role to play. And the reason that I'm thinking about this is we're working, working with a brand at the moment that are a baby gear brand and they have a whole team of experts who go on the training from the manufacturers to like, understand how kids car seats work. And they're certified technicians and, you know, they understand all of the gear. But, you know, having built this personal relationship with a potential buyer, they don't really then have an unboxing moment because stuff, you know, those things can be quite big. They often shipped straight from the supplier. And I'm thinking there's got to be a moment there where, like, how cool would it be if you got a card from the person who you've been talking to that says, I really hope your little one enjoys this car seat or whatever.

I love direct mail.

I love direct mail. That's done really well. So I got a terrible piece of direct mail the other day which still sticks in my mind. And it was only terrible just of, oh, it was just. It was something to do. It wasn't. It wasn't even a brand. I can remember it said, important information about your conservatory. And I was like, well, you failed right away there, because I don't have a conservatory and neither does anybody else on my road. So, you know, great, well done with that targeting. Yeah, exactly. Great, great targeting there, people. But no, I think direct mail done really well. And that unboxing is growing.

Yeah, I love it. And I really believe in zero party data as well. And I believe in acquiring and retaining from the start because if you manage to collect enough data, I don't know what's. Did I press something? Is it me? No, I was hearing something. Okay, so what I'm saying is that, yeah, I think you should start Acquiring customers and retaining customers from the start, from the first interaction with the, with the brand and all that zero party data that you collect pre purchase can really define the whole customer journey. And you can collect data about potential customer lifetime value. There's so many things you can do right now, which some of them are old, just, you know, rediscovered. Some of them are cool ways to look at things and all things new ways to look at all things that can really help you stand out in the crowd. Cool. Yeah, Yeah, I like it. I like it. Valentin, before I ask my last question, do you want to ask Sarah something?

Sarah, tell me about why do you love E Commerce at this particular moment? What's the reason behind staying in this industry?

I think it is a land of opportunity right now. And the thing that I have always loved about E Commerce is that, I guess, idealistic moment that you have a small business producer, somebody who is making something beautiful, who can reach a potentially global audience from their workspace, which, you know, could be a room like the office that I'm sitting in now. I, I could be a talented, amazing creator, which I'm not because I don't have great creative skills, but I just love that moment that one person creating something beautiful can connect with the whole world. And, you know, that it is a bit of an idealistic thing, but I love the idea that people can put stuff into the world that makes other people's lives better.

From a country which you don't know the name yet or something like that.

Could be from anywhere. I mean. Yeah, I. So I am probably a little bit behind the times because I've been in TikTok land and I've removed myself from TikTok land because I just get too addicted to it. But I'm. I am deeply loving Instagram reels at the moment. And what I'm finding is that the algorithm has finally worked out that I'm interested in small businesses and creators, and it's showing me people making these amazing things that I would never have even thought could be a thing. And I guess I imagine there's a, you know, a massive uplift in that kind of content because people have had time, you know, 18 months of either being furloughed or having lost a job or, you know, the world has changed so much. I think a lot of people have picked up new hobbies and they've, they've turned them into small businesses, and I find that absolutely fascinating. I'm really interested to see what the, the next big brands are that come out of this time. That we've been through.

Excellent. Juliana, your last question.

My last question is this. What did Swanky discover that makes them better than other agencies that do the same thing? What's the secret that Swanky has that, you know, makes them different than anyone else?

The secret source.

Thank you.

Secret sauce.

No recipe, but tell me what you know makes you stand out next to so many agencies.

I would have to say it's the combination of the people and the expertise, which on itself doesn't sound very unique, but our team has a. You know, and I'm continually amazed at the level and depth of expertise that are our frontline delivery. Delivery team has. Whether we're talking about CRO or our digital marketers or our developers, the. The passion for delivering excellence and breaking the barrier and breaking the mold each time just amazes me. And, you know, that's why I. That's partly why I joined and also because I'm. I'm super proud to be marketing an agency that I think is doing really spectacular things. So, yeah, I think it's combination of people and experience.

I love that. So how can people find you? I mean, Swanky. It's easy. I'll tell the website right now it's swankyagency.com and you will find that link in the episode notes. But how can people find you? Sarah, I think you're doing a podcast too, if I remember right. Are you still doing your podcast?

I am. I'm on a little bit of a break at the moment, but my podcast is called the Marketing Mindset Club, and the idea is that I am helping loan marketers or new marketers or anybody who's in need of a bit of a refresh, get some mindset and tactical skill coaching. So I'm also sort of using it as a development exercise for me because I'm really interested in mentoring other folks and helping marketers do a better job. So, yeah, that's the podcast. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. That's probably the best place. I have completely fallen out of love with Twitter. So don't tweet me because I'm not on there anymore.

I know the feeling. I cannot make anything out of Twitter. LinkedIn is the only.

You know, I used to absolutely love it, and I think I just have developed a bit of a falling out.

With it, but there's too much going on there, man. Like, I cannot keep up with it anymore. So I definitely. I definitely. You feel it. Sarah, thank you so much for being here. If you want to connect to Sarah, get the ebook. Listen to the podcast. You'll find all these links in the episode notes. What are your last words on this last episode of Ecommerce Growth Stories?

Guys, you can make it happen. Your future and stay focused on what really matters to you.

Cool. Well, thank you so much Sarah with awesome ending this with you. Big shout star sponsor Vtex. That's Vtex.com check these guys out. And yeah, I'll see you on a new adventure very soon. It's to be continued.

It's been absolutely awesome to end the series with you guys. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

This podcast was brought to you by Vitex. Vitex is the first and only fully integrated e commerce marketplace and OMS solution that offers fastest time to revenue and no upgrades ever. So go ahead, check them out. Vtex.com.