European Ecommerce Beyond Borders
According to the Eurobarometer survey, Europeans are getting much more comfortable shopping online, but not necessarily shopping beyond borders. Roughly half of all Europeans with a computer have shopped online, …
Business globalization
Newsweek Localization: Sometimes The Truth Hurts
Thanks to fellow Mizzou J-school graduate Matt Hilburn for pointing this out. If you visit the home page of Newsweek.com, you’ll see the front pages of this week’s issue from …
The Rise of the Arab Internet
According to Madar Research, there were more than 26 million Arabic-speaking Internet users at the end of 2005, an increase of 50% over 2004. Although overall Internet penetration in the …
Forrester: More Europeans Shopping Online
Forrester Research, by way of Internet Retailer says that the percentage of Europeans shopping online has increased from 42% in 2003 to 56% in 2005. The UK has the highest …
Report: eBay Exiting China
According to Shanghai Daily by way of another news outlet, “Hong Kong-listed Tom.com is going to announce its takeover of eBay’s China division and its PayPal service.” It was less …
Alibris Gearing Up to Expand Globally
As books continue to become harder and harder to find on Amazon’s home page, It’s nice to see a Web site like Alibris, which serves up only books, CDs, and …
Barnes & Noble Going Global? Not So Fast.
Barnes & Noble operates 850 book stores across the United States (including B Dalton), selling more than 450 million books a year. But the company has not strayed outside the …
The World According to Wikipedia
Note: This post is excerpted from the September issue of the Global By Design newsletter. Earlier this year, we published the third edition of The Web Globalization Report Card, our …
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
By guest author: Marc Garnaut Spark Media Lab I’ve been sharing my morning coffee for the past year or two with the “yee-ha”s of corporate wagons circling and the “forward-ho”cries …
Disney to Redesign Web Site Next Year
So said Disney president Bob Iger in his earnings call last month. Here’s the text… “In fiscal 2007, we will launch a wholly redesigned Disney.com that will capitalize on the …
Marketing to Chuppies
UPS recently hired a Chinese market research firm to survey 1,200 “Chuppies” Chinese, urban, middle-class consumers. What they found is good news for American companies looking to expand into this …
eBay Tries to Expand Globally Without Offending Locally
eBay, despite doing business in more than 20 countries, still earns the bulk of its revenues from US sellers, folks who have been increasingly unhappy about steadily increasing listing fees. …
Google Cashes Out of Baidu
Baidu is the “Google” of China with 51% of the market (according to CNNIC). Awhile back, Google bought a small chunk of the company, before it went public, presumably with …
McDonalds in China; Elle in the Middle East
The Wall Street Journal features two articles on business globalization and localization — from McDonald’s building drive-thrus in China to Elle publishiing a Middle East edition. For Elle, the challenge …
The .eu Domain is Spawning .edu Hacks
I should have seen this one coming. According to Bret Fausett’s blog, the .eu domain is being registered by individuals hoping to capitalize on Web users who leave off the …