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Cross-border ecommerce

Cross-border ecommerce is selling online to customers in other countries, either from one store or from a separate store for each market.

How it works

A new country means four decisions:

  • Products. A Merchant Center data source lists the countries where its products may show. Free listings can show there automatically. You can keep a product out of Shopping ads in one country.
  • Ads. A campaign shows ads only where its location targeting points. A country code in a feed label doesn’t change that.
  • Language and price. Product data, site and checkout in the shoppers’ language, prices in their currency: that is localisation.
  • Tax. Once a store’s sales of goods from its home EU country to consumers in other EU countries pass 10,000 euros a year, VAT is due in each buyer’s country. The One Stop Shop lets the store declare it in one member state.

Our cross-border expansion plan sets out the steps; campaigns for several countries have their own guide.

Example

Example store, not client data.

The Czech tableware shop adds Slovakia to its data source. Free listings can now show its 3,000 products there, but its only Shopping campaign targets Czechia: no Slovak ads. In a year it sells goods worth 8,000 euros to Slovak consumers and 3,000 euros to Austrian ones, excluding VAT: 11,000 in total, above the 10,000 threshold.

Not to be confused with

  • Multi-store — several stores or brands under one owner. A store per country is one way to sell abroad; one store can also serve several.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “We added Slovakia in Merchant Center, so our Shopping ads run there.” Right: the data source makes products eligible; ads appear only where a campaign targets.

Benchmarks

Benchmark according to Eurostat (survey of people aged 16–74 in the EU who bought online in the previous three months, 2023): 32.8% bought from sellers in other EU countries, 83.0% from sellers in their own country. From other EU countries: Czechia 35.6%, Slovakia 39.0%, Poland 12.6%. Your niche may differ.

Sources