Redirection in the e-commerce world means when you have multiple websites across multiple geographies, the users must be redirected toward the website that would be more suited for them.
For example, if a brand has a domestic website in India and has created a separate global website to target the US population, and if a user from the US tries to access the domestic website of the brand, they must be redirected to the global website.
Redirection is very important in case a brand has multiple websites. Since the websites are designed keeping in mind the interest of the people in that geography, policies & regulations, and the prices are marked as per the ‘landed cost’ of the product, one might find a lot of difference across the two such websites. Letting users access every website might throw the brand in a bad light wherein people might compare prices, whether any special treatment is given to people from a specific geography, etc. All these will be unfit for the image of the brand.
Hence, automatic redirection OR tap-&-redirect options are a must-have on the website.
Following are some issues that the brand might face if they let international users access the domestic website OR vice versa:
> Price difference:
There is a reason why the prices on the global website are a little higher than on the domestic website. Since the brand has to calculate the ‘landed cost’ of the product, it is important that users buy products of that very value suited for that particular geography. Or else it might affect the brand to sell products at a cheaper price with less profit.
> Export Regulations:
People might try to buy products that are not available on the global website by using the domestic website. However, there might be a reason why the product is not on the global website (i.e. export permissions, etc.) that the users might ignore. Thus, leading to a bad shopping experience.
> Impact on international sales:
If the users continue to buy cheaper from the domestic website, it will impact your international sales greatly, thus your chances of growing internationally.
Best Practices while Enabling Re-direction:
> Ensure to not allow the users to cancel the tap-&-redirect pop-up.
> Re-direction should be done for multiple geographies from where we are seeing major traction coming.
> To ensure there is no problem while getting redirected to the other website. Or else, we might lose a potential customer.