This article has been contributed by by Somdutta Singh, Founder and CEO, Assiduus Global
When brands talk about going global, it often sounds like a badge of honor. A sign of scale. A signal to investors. A growth playbook coming to life. But behind the press releases and polished dashboards, the reality is much harder. International expansion is not a straight line. It is full of tangled wires: compliance issues, customs delays, payment failures, cart abandonment, and pricing decisions that feel like guesswork. The real challenges of cross-border eCommerce rarely make it to the headlines. But they shape everything that follows.
The Hidden Frictions at the Border
Start with the border itself. Most teams underestimate how much friction happens there. Not on paper, but at the port. When a shipment sits at customs longer than expected or when new rules mean your product needs relabeling – what’s on your roadmap and what’s actually moving in transit often become two very different stories. In a recent survey, 43 percent of businesses said customs delays were one of their biggest hurdles. Another 41 percent cited compliance issues, and an equal number pointed to rising delivery costs as a direct result of these frictions.
These are not fringe issues. They sit at the center of your promise to customers. And when things go wrong, they rarely stay invisible. A shipping delay becomes a customer complaint. A misclassified product becomes a compliance fine. The cost of expansion often shows up in ways teams didn’t budget for, because they assumed geography was just a matter of shipping zones.
Shifting Regulations Can Break Your Model
But cross-border is not just a matter of distance. It is about navigating difference. Difference in regulations, infrastructure, expectations. And the rules that govern those differences are constantly moving.
In May 2025, the U.S. changed how it treats packages from China and Hong Kong. Until then, shipments under 800 dollars could bypass duties. Not anymore. Now every parcel needs full customs entry, including duties, documentation, and delays.
What was once a simple direct-to-consumer model built on low-ticket volume from Asian suppliers is now a maze of paperwork, fees, and slowdowns. For companies already operating on thin margins or short lead times, this kind of change can completely disrupt operations. And it questions the sustainability of the model itself. It is a reminder that in global eCommerce, the risks are not just operational. They are systemic. Every country has the power to change the rules on your business overnight. And even when the product gets through, the transaction might not.
Muskaan Kapoor
Payments: The Silent Dealbreaker
Cross-border payments sound simple until you realize what consumers expect. It is not just about offering a few international cards. In a 2025 study, 99 percent of global shoppers said they expect to see their preferred local method at checkout. Think about that. Nearly every shopper expects checkout to feel local. No guesswork. No new systems. Just the method they trust.
And those preferences are not interchangeable. They are local, cultural, habitual. In the Netherlands, it is iDEAL. In Germany, Klarna. In Southeast Asia, it is often a mix of e-wallets. A single payment option is inconvenient. It is enough to lose the sale entirely. That loss doesn’t show up as a complaint. It shows up as a cart left behind. A customer who never returns. A spike in drop-off rates that your team can’t quite explain. And fixing that is not just a matter of toggling payment options. It means negotiating with multiple providers, updating checkout logic, staying compliant with regional financial laws, and dealing with a whole new set of settlement timelines.
Why Platform Strategy and Logistics Make or Break Scale
So brands adapt. They add layers. More gateways. Localized flows. More “ifs” in the codebase. But complexity scales quickly. Maintaining multiple checkout stacks, syncing prices with currency changes, managing tax calculation. These are not just engineering problems. They are business risks. Delays in localization cost time. Mistakes cost trust. This is why platform strategy becomes make or break. It is tempting to replicate your domestic storefront in every market. Copy, paste, translate. But replication is brittle. It cracks under nuance. What works for one region, like design, flow, tone, or CTA placement, can fail entirely in another. The structure needs to flex without falling apart.
That is why a growing number of retailers are shifting to composable commerce, where infrastructure is built like blocks and each region can plug into what it needs. In the U.S., 72 percent of retailers had already adopted this model by early 2023, with another 21 percent planning to do so within a year.
This is not just to adopt the latest tech but to introduce flexibility for themselves. Because scaling globally does not mean doing more of the same. It means adapting quickly without tearing everything down every time a new market opens up. And beneath all this, beneath the platforms and payments and policy, is the backbone most teams ignore at first: logistics.
The market for cross-border eCommerce logistics is already massive, estimated at 103.8 billion dollars in 2024. It is expected to nearly double to 192.7 billion dollars by 2030. That growth does not just reflect opportunity. It reflects complexity. Complexity in inventory positioning, in returns, in last-mile handoffs across countries with different infrastructures.
And logistics is where it all lands. If the front-end experience is what customers remember, the backend is what they feel. A return request that goes unanswered. A customs hold no one explains. A charge that catches them off guard. These small cracks erode trust faster than flashy discounts can rebuild.
In cross-border commerce, the margin of error is smaller. Expectations are higher. And the room for forgiveness is often nonexistent. And yet, for those who embrace the friction, cross-border becomes a powerful advantage. Not because it is easy. But because it forces better systems. It forces teams to think modularly, invest intentionally, and serve more empathetically. It priortizes the question, “how well can we scale”, over “how fast can we grow.”
Because global reach means nothing without local relevance. And local relevance does not come from translation. It comes from understanding. From rethinking checkout flows, service models, fulfillment routes, and price sensitivity based on region. That work is not glamorous. It rarely fits into a launch campaign. But it is the work that separates flash-in-the-pan growth from long-term cross-border resilience. The truth is, going global is not about a milestone. It is about a mindset. A way of building that centers on flexibility, precision, and respect for the markets you enter. And for brands ready to do that work, the opportunity is still enormous. You just have to know where the friction hides.
Kinnary Nensee
