The document discusses considerations for global ecommerce architecture. It outlines different approaches including a single global site, separate sites per geography, and a hybrid "reference application" approach. Key factors to consider include languages, currencies, pricing, taxes, payments, shipping, and integrating with local partners. A reference application provides flexibility to customize components for each locale while maintaining code reuse. The best approach depends on a company's size, resources, goals, and management structure.

1. Going Global
Considerations for global ecommerce architecture
Ilya Vinogradsky

2. Why go global?
SCALING →

3. Top countries with online users
245
82
513 101
121

4. What to keep in mind going global
Each geography has particular nuances
in each of the following areas:
— Language
— Currency
— Pricing
— Taxation
— Shipping methods and calculation rules
— Payment methods
— User experience
— Name and number of fields
— Numbers
— Dates
— Form validation
— Order management/Fulfillment
— Integrations with 3rd parties
— Search Engines and Social Networks

5. Language
— European languages are left to right
— Middle Eastern languages are right to left
— Asian languages are either right to left of up down
— Same words in different languages take up different amount of space on screen

6. Currency
— Different currency symbols ($₤€₱₴₴)
— Different number separators (, .)

7. Pricing
— Pricing in different countries is different
— Pricing in US usually ends with .99 while in other countries ends with .00
— Some countries don’t show fractions at all

8. Taxation
— Tax rules often change
— US merchant is supposed to charge taxes at location of store/warehouse
— In Europe each country has different rules for taxation
Crocs (NY State) Crocs (GB) Crocs (ESP)

9. Shipping methods and calculation rules
Shipping methods
— In US most typical are Standard (5-7 days delivery), Expedited (2 days), Overnight (1 day)
— In Eastern Europe and Asia Cash on Delivery is very important
Calculations
— Can be done by a standard shipping table
— By integration with shipping provider
— Some companies offer free shipping for online orders

10. Payment methods

11. User Experience
Different expectations:
— Name and number of fields
— Numbers
— Dates
— Form validation

12. Order Management/Fulfillment
─ If each geographies grow independently it’s very common to have different Order Management systems
─ Integration with all of these order management system may be difficult
─ Standardization of a single Order Management system for multiple geographies can save time, but is
not realistic everywhere due to valid business reasons, as well as internal company politics

13. Integration with 3rd parties
analytics, product reviews, product recommendations, address
verification, tag management, shopping comparison
engines, order auto replenishment, video hosting, social

14. Multiple ways to architect the solution

15. Hybrid way to architect the solution

16. Single global solution – Option 1
Single website that mostly focuses on your primary market, but allows orders from other geographies to
be placed and fulfilled.
Basic approach: keep everything, including single currency and language, but add ability to ship globally
Pros:
─ Least expensive solution
─ Cheaper to maintain from development
and business point of view
─ Single code base
─ Hosted in one location
─ Shipping from one global location
─ Minimal changes to functionality of the site,
forms manipulation
─ Minimal requirements for ecommerce
platform
Cons:
─ Low conversion rate for customers coming
from other geographies
─ User experience cannot be fully optimized
─ Shipping costs are high to secondary
geographies
─ Doesn’t accommodate local payment
methods
─ Search engines will not rank site high in
non-primary geographies
─ Site loads slower in secondary geographies,
because of Internet latency (can be
mitigated somewhat by using Content
Delivery Networks such as Akamai)

17. Single global solution – Option 2
Single website that mostly focuses on your primary market, but accommodates languages and pricing for
secondary markets and allows orders from other geographies to be placed and fulfilled.
Basic approach: keep everything, add currency and language options, ability to ship globally
Pros:
─ Single code base
─ Hosted in one location
─ Shipping from one global location
─ Minimal changes to functionality of the
site, forms manipulation
─ Minimal requirements for ecommerce
platform
Cons:
─ Conversion rate for customers coming from
other geographies is better, but still lower
than from primary geography
─ User experience cannot be fully optimized
─ Shipping costs are high to secondary
geographies
─ Doesn’t accommodate local payment
methods
─ Search engines will not rank site high in
non-primary geographies
─ Site loads slower in secondary
geographies, because of Internet latency
(can be mitigated somewhat by using
Content Delivery Networks such as Akamai)
─ A little more expensive to maintain than
Option 1
─ Business team must provide translations and
pricing for each geography as well as maintain
site content for each language

18. Single global solution (Option 2)
Architecture requirements:
Requirements for ecommerce platform
— Single ecommerce site
— Multiple languages
— Multiple currencies
— Multiple price lists – one for each geography
Requirements for site implementation
— Manipulation of site forms to accommodate each geography
— Implementation of geography and language selection manually or based on geo location
— Page implementation to accommodate different length of words within same area of the page
— Integration with payment gateway that accepts multiple currencies

19. Separate solution for each geography
Multiple sites – each fully customized to the needs of each locale
Basic approach: each new site is a full copy of the existing code base, which is customized and
managed separately going forward.
Pros:
─ Accommodates all needs of each
geography fully
─ Simple development architecture
─ Can be managed by each individual local
team
─ No network latency when each site is
hosting in dedicated locale
Cons:
─ High cost for implementation, hosting and
maintenance
─ Not a lot of code reuse
─ No centralized control over
branding, technical direction and
functionality

20. Hybrid: Shared architecture with customizations
Components based architecture (Reference Application) that can be
easily customized and configured for plugging in and out features and
integrations.
Provides 80+% functionality needed to launch sites internationally.
Provides standard storefront and user experience optimized for brands
user base.
Multiple sites built on top of shared Ref App code base with some site
specific customizations.

21. Ref App Approach

22. Ref App Evolution – V1

23. Ref App Evolution – V2

24. Ref App Evolution – V3

25. Ref App Pros/Cons
Pros:
─ Very flexible architecture
─ Significant code reuse
─ Allows for locale specific customizations
─ Hosted in one location
─ Significant saving in effort and time for
large (50+ site) global rollout
Cons:
─ Requires advanced ecommerce platform
─ Complex architecture
─ Requires strong centralized management
and global vision

26. Conclusion
— Size
— Internal Management Structure
— Financing
— Ambitions
— Vision
Architectural approach should be selected based on each
companies