The Rosetta Stone of eCommerce

• Craig Reed is the GM of Cross-Border at Avalara and has watched the industry develop over the last 20 years. He’s truly one of the godfathers of cross-border eCommerce.
• An HS code is the code that an individual country expects you to give them to tell them what you're importing. This is important because all the other rules and restrictions flow from HS codes. Craig likes to label HS codes as “The Rosetta Stone of eCommerce.”
• The way we think about goods is different for every country and is different in every country.
• “A marketing description of a good and a country's description of a good are vastly different things, and they don't work well together. But getting that description is important. Getting to that Rosetta Stone is important, and that's the art behind trying to do cross-border eCommerce well.”- Craig
• If you’re doing anything cross-border, it is all about having the right information, and the right data.
• “It's about having good data and providing the right data to the right party at the right time, whether that's the consumer, whether it's a government, whether it's your suppliers, etc. You really need to have good data.”- Craig
• Customer expectations have changed, which means that the cross-border customer expectations have shifted. It's important to provide a good buying experience because the buying experience is also the shipping experience.
• “The way that you deliver your customer supply chain is your customer experience” -Brian

Associated Links:

• Want to learn more about going cross-border? Download our free Step by Step guide!
• Get connected with Avalara!
• Learn more about Craig Reed
• Listen to our other Step by Step seasons
• Find our other Future Commerce episodes on our website

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