BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Cycle workout training video brand Three Legs Cycling (3LC) has been expanding its business overseas via its online site with the help of ShopIntegrator, the hosted shopping cart ecommerce plugin solution that converts existing websites into online stores with no coding required.
ShopIntegrator founder Simon Horton writes…
3LC sells its cycle training videos and cycling apparel to an international customer base across 50 countries. Offering both tangible goods and digital downloads meant it was important for 3LC to find an ecommerce solution capable of handling both equally well.
3LC is operated by Peter Kennaugh Snr, father of Pete Kennaugh, the British 2012 Olympic gold medallist. Peter’s connections within the cycling world have meant he’s been able to produce exclusive cycling training sessions on video with champions like his son, Mark Cavendish and Steve Joughin, to name a few.
I spoke with Peter Kennaugh Snr to find out what has had the greatest impact on his ability to sell overseas…
SH: What challenges have you’ve encountered selling internationally?
Peter Kennaugh Snr: Obviously the first issue is dispatch times for international orders. Communication is the key here. We make it clear to our customers that physical goods sent abroad will take longer for them to receive, but to offset this we offer free worldwide shipping. That’s unusual, but it’s made a huge difference. The more people around the world that are using our training products the better!
SH: What helps most with selling to international customers?
PK: We use ShopIntegrator because it supports a multi-currency shopping cart and digital downloads for our training videos. As a result we have seen a significant increase in sales to international customers as they no longer have to wait to receive their orders. The system works fantastically well and we rarely have any issues.
SH: What other features would make overseas orders easier?
PK: The key factor that will help us sell more internationally is making our training sessions and website multi-lingual. When we’re ready, our ecommerce software will translate the website into six other languages, so we just need to put a timeline in place to do the rest. Once we’ve achieved this I think we will be able to tap into all global markets and help many more people with their cycling training.
SH: 3LC’s ecommerce platform automatically emails the customer at each stage of the fulfilment process. It’s worth checking if your ecommerce software gives customers the option to browse and buy in their own language as it makes them feel more comfortable and helps to reduce cart abandonment at the checkout.
Ecommerce has made exporting British goods overseas very easy, but you do need to think about shipping and taxes as well, such as import duties for some countries and VAT within the European Union. VAT registered businesses selling to the EU must charge the UK VAT rate on the order, whereas customers outside the EU will pay the ex-VAT price. New EU tax regulation changes set to come into force in 2015 will make things more complicated for the eseller as it legislates that a business must charge the EU VAT rate of the buyer’s country instead of applying a common UK VAT rate to all EU sales.
This article was written by ShopIntegrator founder Simon Horton.
