The Challenge:
Carel has been selling online domestically and internationally for many years. Despite the brand’s tremendous growth over the years, the DNA of the family-founded business remains, with a small team who was managing its webstore and international e-commerce operation in-house. With growing global demand, fuelled by its celebrity following and international concept stores, the iconic Parisian shoes and accessories brand was aware that it was not fully capitalizing on its international web traffic and understood that its inability to offer its international customers the same seamless and streamlined experienced it offered its domestic clientele was limiting its global growth potential.
Carel’s international shoppers were only able to view product prices and make payments in EUR and were faced with unknown conversion rates and international transaction fees. International shoppers were only able to checkout with cards or PayPal, and the brand was unable to provide them with calculation or prepayment of duties and taxes. This created friction in the customer journey due to frequent delays at customs and unexpected fees upon delivery.
Carel understood that in order to enhance the global shopping experience on its webstore and grow its international revenue streams, it needed to work with a global e-commerce solution provider with expert knowledge and industry experience. The brand looked for a cost-effective solution that would integrate seamlessly with its PrestaShop webstore to enable a streamlined shopping experience for international customers, backed by data, in order to fully cater to the demands of each market it was selling to, for optimized conversion rates.
The Solution:
In order to grow its international D2C e-commerce business, Carel chose to Partner with Global-e, the world’s leading platform to enable and accelerate global, D2C e-commerce.
Through a single integration process with Global-e’s certified PrestaShop extension, fully managed by Global-e’s team of experts, Carel now provides shoppers in over 200 international markets with an optimized shopping experience that is localized and tailored to the unique characteristics of each market and in alignment with the brand’s international business strategy and goals. This includes:
- Localised messaging – Customizable banner and welcome pop-up for each market, promoting key marketing messages such as free shipping over a specific threshold. Supported in 30+ languages.
- Local pricing in local currencies – Product pricing is set per market according to Carel’s business strategy and is rounded according to local market convention. 100+ currencies are supported.
- Multilingual checkout page – Shoppers can complete their purchase in their native language. 30+ languages are supported.
- Competitive international shipping – Free express delivery on all orders
- Guaranteed landed cost – A flexible approach based on Global-e’s data-driven best-practice recommendations, with capabilities to offer:
- Prices inclusive of all taxes and duties and informing customers that no additional costs will be added to their purchase
- Prices inclusive of duties with taxes displayed at the checkout with the option to prepay
- All taxes and duties displayed at the checkout with the option to prepay for a guaranteed landed cost
- A wide range of local and alternative payment options – Shoppers can opt to pay with local and alternative payment methods that are popular in their market. 150+ payment methods are supported.
- Transparent and easy returns process – Multi-lingual international returns portal, prepaid returns at a fixed price.
Carel also benefits from Global-e’s best-in-class AI-based international payment fraud prevention solution which reduces risks associated with global e-commerce, together with Global-e’s intelligent payment routing, which maximizes transaction acceptance rates in real-time. These solutions reduce friction and contribute significantly to a streamlined customer and merchant experience.
Global-e works closely with Carel, providing ongoing guidance and support from the integration process and beyond. Through big-data-backed vertical and local market best-practice recommendations, Global-e worked with Carel to set its propositions per market to streamline its go-to-market strategy. Following the launch of Carel’s localized webstore, the Global-e team, led by a dedicated Success Manager, provides the brand with ongoing performance analysis across international markets and expert advice, helping it to drive growth while maintaining profitability by identifying new potential revenue streams through previously untapped markets and ensuring continuous optimization of current markets.
