Home Blog E-commerce International E-commerce: Building a Cross-Border Strategy E-commerce International E-commerce: Building a Cross-Border Strategy By Pascal Brunel on 10 July 2025 6 minutes read Summarize this article Or summarize with: ChatGPTPerplexityClaudeMistral One of the issues that has grown dramatically in importance in recent years is the internationalization of companies’ e-commerce operations. Here is a look back at 25 years of e-commerce and the rise of a new approach that has become essential for international e-commerce: cross-border. An icon of the 2000s How international e-commerce has evolved Since the advent of the internet in the 2000s, international digital commerce has gone through several major phases, which can be summarized as follows: Phase one (2000-2010): the early days of international e-commerce Online retail is still marginal, and companies like Amazon and eBay are starting to expand internationally. Cross-border logistics remain complex and costly, and shopping experiences are rarely localized (companies sell the same way everywhere, without taking local behaviors into account). Consumers tend to trust local players close to home. The Amazon website in 1999 Phase two (2010-2015): a structured opening to international markets Mobile networks and devices take off, and social networks and marketplaces boom. E-commerce platforms evolve to become multilingual and multicurrency. It is the era of “multi-everything”! Large retailers with the means and the organization to do so roll out country-specific e-commerce platforms (often described as country-specific front ends run from one or more back-office instances). Payment solutions are localized too, and international dropshipping finally takes off. The Amazon website in 2015 Phase three (2015-2020): cross-border e-commerce accelerates and takes shape Technical and logistical barriers recede. Brands and companies focus their efforts on UX and payments, which become key conversion drivers. At the same time, Asia gradually becomes the engine of global trade. It is no longer just about building multilingual, multicurrency sites: the tax issues of global trade must be taken into account too. Europe adopts the One-Stop Shop (OSS), a tax scheme that simplifies VAT reporting and payment on cross-border sales. The logistics organization needed to be efficient has become far more complex as e-commerce has crossed continents.This is when cross-border solutions such as Zonos, Digital River, Flow.io and Global-e emerge, bringing concrete answers to key international e-commerce challenges. Coupang: an example of logistics excellence in Asia, in a dense, highly connected urban environment / rocket delivery / minimalist UX Since 2020: post-COVID digital globalization The unexpected COVID crisis accelerates the digitalization of international trade. Companies seek to diversify their channels and geographic markets while being more isolated than ever. E-commerce is a major lever for sustaining and growing business. Cross-border accounts for up to 30% of global B2C e-commerce sales. We are entering the era of last-mile optimization and international returns. This even affects century-old national organizations such as La Poste, the French postal service, which is adapting its offering to international trade. Lawmakers are looking for ways to protect local markets, such as taxing parcels of a certain weight, so large has the share of international trade become. Meanwhile, economic zones are adopting even more rules to try to regulate trade as a whole (GDPR, VAT…). Companies forced to adapt In 25 years, global trade has been transformed, driven mainly by e-commerce, which has broken down many borders. Today, to be efficient and competitive in international e-commerce, you need to be fully operational on three fronts: Organizational (teams, processes, local culture) Logistics (delivery, returns, inventory) Legal (taxation, customs, regulations) Cross-border solutions are part of the toolkit that lets a company approach international digital commerce effectively. Synolia x Global-e: an answer to international e-commerce needs In this context, Synolia has partnered for several years with Global-e, the leading cross-border commerce solution. For more than 20 years, Synolia has been deploying e-commerce platforms for all kinds of companies and organizations, from the SMB that wants to sell its products and services locally and efficiently to the large group or globally known brand that wants to serve the whole planet. Every project is different. And whether it is a B2C, B2B or B2B2C project, each one requires a specific strategy to meet particular needs. Our job at Synolia is to bring relevant answers to those needs. That is why Synolia partners with Global-e. In practical terms, this platform lets you sell in more than 200 countries while keeping the company’s current internal processes, which are often designed for local commerce. It removes the need to build an international organization to handle complex issues such as logistics, taxation, or local customs and legal regulations. Discover Global-e Take a real use case we deployed with Global-e a while ago: A French lingerie brand sells its products across Europe from its warehouses in France. To sell in Germany, Belgium and Spain, it upskilled its teams and added new German- and Spanish-speaking staff to its customer service department. It also strengthened its sales administration team to handle cross-border orders and VAT. In Germany, buying processes are fairly specific. Consumers place a lot of orders… but they also return a lot. It is therefore essential to adapt the product offering and reassurance elements to each market’s expectations. Entering these new markets requires adapting the company’s organization and sales strategy. That said, geographic proximity and membership in the eurozone make this international expansion relatively simple. But what if the brand wants to sell in Poland or the United States? What are the specifics of tax policy in those countries? Can it keep the same site and user journey and simply translate its product pages? And what if the company wants to enter the Asian market and sell in Japan or Korea, for example? International growth: a strategy you cannot improvise Selling internationally is now a major challenge for companies that want to stay competitive and grow their revenue and margins. But selling abroad is complex and cannot be improvised. A company has to organize itself in terms of people, resources (information systems, offices, logistics, etc.) and sales (offering, promotions, etc.) to adapt to the local culture… “Poland is now one of the most promising markets in Europe. It is a real opportunity, but converting there takes a solid understanding of local expectations: displaying prices in zloty, offering payment methods such as BLIK or Przelewy24, guaranteeing DDP delivery in under 3 days… The same logic applies to Japan: a market with strong purchasing power, but extremely demanding on customer experience (think gift wrapping, suitable packaging, etc.). In short, it is impossible for a merchant to handle all these subtleties across more than 200 markets… But that is exactly where Global-e's expertise comes in, built on experience with more than 1,000 customers.” Arnaud Vançon, Partner Network Manager, Global-e “Since we are talking about specifics, take the example of Korea: on Korean e-commerce sites, identity verification through an authentication system such as I-PIN (Internet Personal Identification Number) is mandatory to create a customer account. If you do not take that into account, you can have the right product at the right price and still be unable to sell.” Pascal Brunel, President, Synolia Adapting to your customers, wherever they are: the key to a successful internationalization project. If a company has local resources, offices and warehouses around the world, it is entirely possible to expand a digital platform internationally by making the most of that company’s structure and organization. But what if the company has no local resources and is not set up to serve countries around the world? Cross-border solutions: powering your international e-commerce strategy Cross-border commerce now accounts for a very large share of global B2C sales volume. That is good news for merchants, even the smallest ones, who now have solutions that make it easier to access international markets. A cross-border solution can be implemented by any merchant running a standard e-commerce solution (Magento, Adobe Commerce, Shopify…). It enables fast, efficient growth without the huge investments that used to be required. Source: eMarketer, Statista, UNCTAD, Cross-Border Commerce Europe In addition, implementing a cross-border platform must go hand in hand with a true digital strategy, led by your teams and supported by an integration partner like Synolia. With our consulting and e-commerce integration expertise, we help our customers adapt their platform to different user experiences and to the constraints and opportunities of each market, in line with local rules. For example, at Synolia we delivered a B2C e-commerce project for a major outdoor brand across three continents, with more than forty-five websites (one for each country served). So for your own international e-commerce strategy, think cross-border! Already running an e-commerce platform and planning to expand internationally? Let's talk! Pascal Brunel Pascal heads the Synolia Group, which comprises the Synolia, Blackbird, and W3 Lead brands, as well as the Carré studio, with five offices in France (Lyon, Paris, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, and Rennes) and Santiago, Chile. View profile Twitter LinkedIn Facebook E-mail
