Online success Estee Lauder based on local approach

Estee Lauder believe the key to successfully selling online in Europe is to just take on one country or a region at a time, leverage existing e-commerce systems where possible and keep everything else local. Today, Estee Lauder sells online in 11 European countries, including its newest market: Russia.

The companie’s sales in Europe are estimated to have reached about 30.5 million euros in 2010, up 3.7% from 29.4 million euros in 2009. In 2011, Estee Lauder, which processes all transactions on a single global e-commerce platform, will expand into several other Eastern European countries, although the company has yet to say which ones. Estee Lauder first began selling online in Europe in the United Kingdom about a decade ago, and that’s where the company learned to create individual marketing, merchandising and payment options for each market.

Unique content in the local language is key
Today, Estee Lauder has a dedicated web marketing and merchandising team in each country in which it sells that develops unique content written in the local language. Search engine marketing strategies, both paid and natural, also are driven by the specific keywords and phrases of shoppers in each country.

Besides content and language the company also pays close attention to consumer demand for certain products and local payment options. In the U.K. more cosmetics purchased from an Estee Lauder e-commerce site are paid for with a credit card, but in Germany, where consumers are less prone to pay with credit cards, about 60% of web shoppers use a “promise to pay” service, or pay for merchandise when they pick up their packages at the post office.

"A cookie cutter approach to Europe won’t work,” says Dennis McEniry, President ELC Online. “In Germany we have a ‘promise to pay’ program and in France that option doesn’t exist. "We’re successful because we study very carefully what consumers expect online in each country and then refine our e-commerce presence to meet those expectations.”

Source: Internet Retailer