Banking on a bottom line boost from Cyber Week this year?
You and every other Australian retailer that’s become accustomed to bumper sales in the month before Christmas.
Originally a marketing initiative from the US National Retail Federation, to promote online shopping on the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend, ‘Cyber Monday’ was launched in 2005.
In the intervening two decades, it’s morphed into a Bigger-than-Ben-Hur e-commerce event, generating sales of US $13.3 billion in the US according to Adobe Analytics and $49.7 billion globally according to Salesforce.
Here in Australia, the AusPost eCommerce Report found that Australians spent $2.2 billion online during the Black Friday sales, an increase of 10 per cent on the prior year. In addition, $2.9 billion was spent in-store on Black Friday.
Looking further afield for Cyber Week sales
Local retailers with more than an ounce of nous won’t just be looking to snag their share of the splurge Down Under – they’ll be positioning themselves to capture a slice of the spending frenzy overseas as well.
Our weak dollar makes Australian goods a bargain and a string of suppliers with appealing offerings continue to find a ready market for their wares in the US.
Join their ranks in time for Cyber Week and you’ll have the opportunity to supercharge your sales over there too.
Doing the groundwork
But if you’re going to do it, it pays to do it right and that can take months of careful planning.
If you’re in the rag trade, you’ll need to curate your range, to ensure you’re offering the right products for the right season, given the US will be shivering its way into winter as we start to swelter here at home.
Fulfilment plans will have to be formulated and tested – should you dispatch orders from your existing facility or opt for an onshore 3PL? – and your returns policy and processes reviewed to ensure they meet US expectations.
Then there’s marketing, with localised campaigns to be developed and tested before they’re ramped up in the weeks leading up to 28 November.
Getting to grips with US compliance complexity
Getting your virtual shop front in order and promoting your wares shouldn’t be the only tasks on your To Do list.
You’ll also need to register your business correctly in each of the US states where you hope to make sales. Unless you intend to home in on a single geographic area, that’s likely to be all 50 of them. There’s a few days’ work – and a whole lot of headaches! – for your admin team right there, if you plan on doing it manually.
It will also be your responsibility to collect the appropriate taxes and tariffs from the US bargain hunters who give your goods a whirl.
The system over there is far from simple and it’s extraordinarily easy for overseas sellers to get things badly wrong.
At present, there are more than 13,000 sales and use tax jurisdictions in the US. Some states have different laws for locally based and remote sellers, while others require sellers to apply a fee to orders that contain items of personal property. Additional charges may be levied on deliveries over a certain value or those which are delivered by vehicle.
Avoiding Cyber Week sales tax stuff-ups
Many of these taxes come under the purview of state and local authorities and their tolerance for non-compliant sellers can vary considerably.
Remedying errors can be time consuming and the cost of doing so may eat into the additional revenue you generate from the Cyber Week boom.
It’s simpler and less stressful to get it right from the outset and automated tax compliance software can ensure you do so. Designed to make it easy for overseas businesses to sell into the US, it simplifies and streamlines all the activities associated with tax compliance, including registration, licensing, calculation, document management, reporting and e-invoicing.
Add it to your back-office technology stack and you’ll be able to register for trade and apply the appropriate sales and use taxes for every US state and jurisdiction, accurately and in real time.
Cashing in on a golden opportunity to secure export sales
Cyber Week is one of the biggest events on the global retail calendar and selling into the US can supercharge sales and profits for savvy Australian retailers. Meticulous planning is the key to success and deploying automated tax compliance software will make it easy for you to manage the compliance piece. If capitalising on this end-of-year opportunity is a priority for your business, now’s the time to begin your preparations.