Just got an email from USPS about this and thought I'd share. Who's buying, what, and why.
All of this is worth a read, for it does provide some valuable insight as to what consumers are wanting out of a website. One of the biggies is people being worried about their financial data being secure. Which is something I've noticed with many sites - their failure to communicate what sort of steps they have taken (if any) to keep the customer's card info secure. With many sites it's hard to tell at the time of submitting the info whether the card info is being emailed to the company for manual charging without even being encrypted, if it's being saved to the server, or if it's being securely passed through a gateway at the time of purchase and not being stored. Some of it is also a bit of a chuckle (see China section for what I mean

)
According to a PayPal/Ipsos trends report:
Brazil
67% of adult internet users bought something online. 45% of them shopped on international sites.
The top categories of items they bought from international sites were:
Clothing, Footwear, and accessories
Cosmetics/beauty products
Consumer electronics
Reasons they bought from international sites they purchased from:
Free shipping
Safe way to pay
Customer support in their language
Reasons they abandoned a purchase from an international site:
Shipping charges too high
Delivery time too long
Concerns about web security
Canada
62% of adult internet users bought something online. 63% of them shopped on international sites.
The top categories of items they bought from international sites were:
Clothing, Footwear, and accessories
Entertainment/education (digital)
Travel & transportation
Reasons they bought from international sites they purchased from:
Free shipping
Lower overall cost to buy items from another country
Costs shown/payment possible in their local currency
Reasons they abandoned a purchase from an international site:
Shipping charges too high
Having to pay customs duty, fees, or taxes
Currency conversion rate not favorable
China
84% of adult internet users bought something online. 26% of them shopped on international sites.
The top categories of items they bought from international sites were:
Clothing, Footwear, and accessories
Cosmetics/beauty products
Grocery, food, drink, alcohol
Reasons they bought from international sites they purchased from:
Secure way to pay
Proof of product authenticity
Costs shown/payment possible in their local currency
Reasons they abandoned a purchase from an international site:
Delivery time too long
Difficult process to return items
Concerns about security of financial or personal details
Delivery shipping costs
Other countries listed in the article are: France, Germany, Japan, Russia, UK
Full article at:
https://www.uspsdelivers.com/cross-border-e-commerce/