ITA’s Strategic Partnerships Helping eCommerce Firms Sell More Online, Overseas
July 25, 2017This post contains external links. Please review our external linking policy.
By Patrick Morris, Intern in the Office of Strategic Partnerships
Josh Halpern, Director of ITA’s eCommerce Innovation Lab, works with business leaders in workshops around the world to help them reach new, foreign markets online.
Interested in entering new overseas, online markets? Join the International Trade Administration’s (ITA) Strategic Partner Global Retail Insights Network (GRIN) and the Getting to Global Initiative for interactive labs around the world. The events are designed to help companies develop a strategy for taking their online business global. Those attending learn best practices for new market entry as well as develop specific plans of action to catapult their e-commerce business’ global network.
ITA established a Strategic Partnership with GRIN in 2016 based on a mutual interest to encourage U.S. domestic companies to learn about and access the online, global market. Recent research suggests that shoppers choose to buy online because it is cheaper, easier, and more convenient. In addition, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicts that the global middle class will grow to 4.9 billion people in the next 15 years, compared to 1.9 billion in 2009. Many of these new middle class members will engage in online, cross-border purchases, making e-commerce increasingly more lucrative, especially in emerging economies.
A recent iteration of the GRIN Lab was hosted by another Strategic Partner, eBay, at their Chelsea location in New York City on July 13. The content was designed by Josh Halpern, the Director of ITA’s eCommerce Innovation Lab, and Carl Miller, the Managing Director of a not-for-profit global community for e-commerce professionals. It provided a full-circle guide to accessing overseas markets. The conference covered various topics, such as where and how to begin a global network, how data can be used to identify specific market opportunities, and the tools needed to optimize global pursuits.
Carl Miller discusses the benefits of taking online retail global at the GRIN Lab on July 13 at Strategic Partner eBay’s New York City office.
To take advantage of international markets online, stay tuned for future GRIN events as they host more 20 labs annually, in cities including Shanghai, Singapore, Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, and London. The next lab is in Boston, August 15-16 with a focus on Asia. The labs, regardless of location, stay dedicated to the same core principles: presenting niche business-knowledge to the broader community, synergizing through the collaboration of business minds with various backgrounds, and helping retailers and brands of all sizes learn from the first-hand experiences of others.
Visit http://www.thegrinlabs.com/leadership-labs/ for a comprehensive schedule of upcoming labs.
You can view video interviews about how to sell more online and overseas from our public/private partnership on the industry site: www.gettingtoglobal.org. To learn more about ITA’s work in the eCommerce market, specifically the work of the eCommerce Innovation Lab, please visit https://www.export.gov/eCommerce.
Tradeology, the ITA Blog 