A majority of retailers in Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the US offered online sales to international customers as of June 2017, according to Pitney Bowes, and nearly one-third or more in each country planned to offer cross-border ecommerce within a year.
"Marketplaces continue to grow in importance, for both domestic ecommerce and shopping on foreign sites," said eMarketer's Krista Garcia. "In fact, marketplaces were deemed the biggest 'game-changer' in the Payvision study, knocking mcommerce, the No. 1 answer for the past three years, to fourth place."
Pitney Bowes found that worldwide, 59% of domestic online purchases occur on marketplaces like eBay or Flipkart, and the percentage was even high for cross-border purchases (62%). These platforms are perceived to have better selection and prices. Amazon was the leading marketplace used by cross-border buyers worldwide for their most recent purchase, at 25%, according to an October 2017 International Post Corporation (IPC) survey. eBay (18%) and Alibaba (14%) followed.
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