What Is International Ecommerce? Best Practices in 2027

International ecommerce gives you the opportunity to reach shoppers far beyond your home market and build a more geographically diverse customer base.

According to DHL’s 2026 E-Commerce Trends Report, 70% of online shoppers have shopped internationally in 2026, up from 60% in 2025. Forty-five percent of shoppers buy items across borders more than once per month. Overall, international shipments account for more than three in 10 ecommerce orders.

In this article, you’ll learn the definition of international ecommerce, why businesses choose this type of business expansion, and the best practices for a successful international ecommerce strategy.

What is international ecommerce?

International ecommerce is the practice of buying and selling goods online across countries’ borders. It requires the use of global payments, international shipping networks, and international logistics systems, as well as compliance with taxes, customs, and import regulations.

International ecommerce allows you to reach online buyers beyond your borders, which can, in turn, generate more sales. For example, Australian fragrance brand WHO IS ELIJAH used Shopify’s expansion stores through Shopify Plus to improve their international engagement. By better localizing the customer experience in other countries, they increased international direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales revenue by 400% from $2 million in 2022 to $10 million in 2024, while also accelerating new customer growth.

However, global ecommerce adds complexity and cost to your online business. Shopify tools can help you manage these additional considerations, making international online sales more accessible to businesses of all sizes. 

Best practices for international ecommerce expansion

• Analyze market research and store data
• Choose one or two markets to start
• Evaluate your operational readiness
• Consider international shipping, fulfillment, and compliance partners
• Localize for each market

Expanding internationally adds new considerations regarding marketing, logistics, compliance, and the customer experience. 

These best practices can help you plan your international ecommerce expansion:

Analyze market research and store data

The best new markets for ecommerce businesses aren’t necessarily the largest countries or the same places a competitor is targeting. Instead, take a holistic approach to evaluating potential markets. 

First, review market research to understand buying habits and interests in other countries. Analytics and advisory firms like Gartner, eMarketer, and McKinsey can provide information about country-level spending habits and industry trends in your specific vertical. Tools like Google Trends can show you what people search for in various locales.

Second, analyze your own storefront data to identify signs of demand for your products from global consumers. Shopify Analytics has sessions-by-location reports that show where your site visitors and customers are located. 

If you already have visitors or sales from certain overseas locations, these regions might be good contenders for international expansion. For example, on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, Original Duckhead founder Morgan Cros says that the team used Shopify Analytics to identify France and Germany as major markets for the UK umbrella brand, with a strong customer presence in the US and Australia as well.

Choose one or two markets to start

Your market research and store data can help you select your first international markets for expansion. Consider sticking to one or two to begin. You can test and gain lessons from your initial rollout before expanding further.

To narrow down your list of countries, clarify your goals. Why, exactly, are you looking to expand to international markets? What are your metrics of success, and what will determine a good return on investment (ROI)?

“The investment needs to follow the money, especially for small businesses with limited resources,” says Derek Gleason, Shopify senior lead, SEO and content. “The starting point is: Which markets will be most valuable to you? Based on your analytics, where are you most likely to get a return? Are you looking for the highest growth opportunity or the highest value customers? You can pick and choose what you care about.”

You might also consider expanding into a neighboring country, which can simplify some of the logistics involved in international ecommerce. Shared-border proximity is a particular draw for European shoppers, as the DHL report found that 77% of Austrian shoppers buy from Germany, 63% of Portuguese shoppers buy from Spain, and 72% of Swiss shoppers buy from Germany.

Evaluate your operational readiness

Before expanding internationally, assess whether your current operations can handle the additional demands. Consider your fulfillment capacity, staffing and resources, shipping costs, and whether you can realistically meet the delivery expectations you set. 

Lexi Hensler learned this lesson the hard way. Before creating her current company, weighted stuffed animal brand Hugz, the content creator started a mental-health-focused apparel line called Lexi Llama that offered international shipping from day one. When the brand launched a Christmas sweater in mid-December, Lexi and her team quickly realized they had underestimated the cost and time involved in shipping them overseas by the holiday.

“A few days before Christmas, we realized we weren’t going to make some of those deliveries, and we felt horrible about it,” Lexi says on Shopify Masters. “So all of us, days before Christmas, are at my apartment packing thousands of orders. I’m hand-signing Christmas cards telling people how much we appreciate them, how sorry we are, basically begging for their forgiveness.”

Consider international shipping, fulfillment, and compliance partners

Third-party partners can help manage the logistics and administrative burdens associated with international ecommerce, including shipping, fulfillment, returns, and regulatory compliance. 

Cross-border shipping is usually more expensive than local deliveries, but there are ways to reduce costs. Seek fulfillment options within your target country to keep shipping costs low. Look for reliable shipping carriers that are either local to the country you’re targeting or specialize in international shipping.

Sean Frank, founder of metal wallet maker Ridge, says on Shopify Masters that the US-based company initially used Shopify Markets to ship cross-border before establishing local fulfillment nodes as it expanded. Ridge now has fulfillment nodes in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, and Mexico. 

Local fulfillment can also make international returns less expensive: Sean says a return from the UK costs $4 to send to Ridge’s UK warehouse, compared with $50 to ship it back to the US.

Your choice of shipping partner can also influence how quickly and cost-effectively your shipments reach international customers. Makeup brand Glamlite struggled with high USPS shipping fees, long delivery times, and limited tracking, but it more than doubled international sales after turning on Shopify Managed Markets and switching to DHL for competitive shipping rates.

“It would be impossible to sell internationally at our current scale without Managed Markets,” Founder Gisselle Hernandez tells Shopify. “We couldn’t target the international markets or compete with most brands based in those regions because I couldn’t ship for even one-tenth of their costs. Now it’s a level playing field, so it’s game time. You can’t put a price on that.”

International shipping also entails compliance with the local import laws and taxes for every country you ship to. Consider working with customs brokerage firms that specialize in importing and exporting overseas to handle compliance. For example, if you sell internationally, you’re required to account for import duties and taxes. These firms can help manage complex ecommerce laws and other requirements associated with international shipping.

Localize for each market

Website localization means adapting your online store to make it feel more natural, welcoming, and easy for your target audiences in other locations. 

“Localizing is not only translation to different languages but also semantics like spelling, idioms, date formatting, currency symbols—plus design that considers the cultural context,” says Derek from Shopify. “These may sound like little details, but this is what makes someone feel the experience was made for them. When those little details are wrong, the shopper notices.”

Elements of your localization strategy may include:

• Domains. Set up market-specific domains, subdomains, or subfolders to create localized versions of your store for different regions.

• Currencies. Display prices in the local currency so shoppers can understand pricing immediately.

• Payment methods. Offer payment methods that reflect local payment preferences and expectations. For example, the Netherlands often uses a payment method called iDEAL.

• Name and address conventions. Names, shipping addresses, and phone numbers may be structured and spaced differently in different countries. 

• Language translation. Translate store content into the languages used by international buyers. Even markets that share a language may require localization. As Derek explains, “You can publish in the same language for the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, but those semantics will be different.”

• Imagery. Adapt visual content to reflect cultural and local sensibilities.

Localization work can extend to your products and positioning. Thousand CEO and founder Gloria Hwang learned this as the bicycle helmet company expanded into more than 20 countries.

“You have to understand what that culture values before you position yourself,” Gloria says on Shopify Masters. 

While their brand often leans into their style and convenience in their messaging, they found they had to take a different approach with customers in Germany. 

“In Germany it’s a highly functional market,” she says. “[So] we really play up our functional competitive advantages. People want price to value, and they want it to look good.”