ESW helps brands with cross-border e-commerce.
Courtesy of ESW
The world of international e-commerce is getting more complex daily as brands navigate increasingly complicated laws and tariffs related to doing business in overseas markets. Enter ESW, a leader in international e-commerce. The company has signed a strategic agreement with all-in-one platform Shopify to provide the essential internet infrastructure for commerce, empowering enterprise brands and retailers alike to scale, localize and optimize their presence in more than 200 markets.
“We started talking to Shopify last year,” said Eric Eichmann, chief executive officer of ESW. “We’ve already transitioned some of our clients to Shopify on our solution, including Tarte and Thom Brown. What we bring to the Shopify environment is the ability to serve companies in a much more effective way. We help the brands reach consumers that love them across the world and establish strong relationships.”
Working with Shopify allows ESW to deliver a strong global e-commerce solution to enterprise merchants, Eichmann said. “By combining Shopify’s high-converting e-commerce platform with ESW’s cross-boarder capabilities, we’re enabling brands to scale internationally with truly localized experiences without forcing them to choose between flexibility and control.”
Enterprise brands using Shopify can leverage ESW’s international expertise in managing compliance, risk and revenue localization at scale. “Large companies now have a service that allows them to go into 200-plus international markets in a way that optimizes their sales and optimizes their margins and provides a good experience for the consumers in that country,” Eichmann said.
ESW handles payments in different parts of the world. “You want to make sure that you have the payment that covers the majority of companies that do business in that country,” Eichmann said. “We do that within the markets. Shopify comes with some payments, but they don’t cover all the payments, so in many cases we actually complement their offerings by adding new payment mechanisms.”
By seamlessly integrating Shopify, ESW gives brands the control, consistency and outcomes they need to grow, Eichmann said. Take a brand like Lululemon, which does business on its own in the U.S. and Canada. “When you’re talking about countries that are complex where their revenues are not as significant, it doesn’t justify for them to go to all the trouble of doing it on their own,” Eichmann said. “That’s when they rely on us to do that for them.”
“When we localize the solution by being in the local language , the conversion rate goes up,” Eichmann said. “If you’re in Malaysia and you’re just in English that’s not the same as being in Malaysia and being in Malay. That makes a big difference, the experience for the consumer is that much better.”
From a brand perspective much of what ESW does is provide a white glove service. The company provides clients with an analysis of what’s working and what’s not working “with a lot of analytics behind it,” Eichmann said. “We’re consistently improving the logistics and the costs associated with that.”