Cross-border marketplaces: how international e-commerce is reshaping assortment strategies

For many years, e-commerce internationalisation almost automatically involved launching local websites: one website per country, one team per market, dedicated content, separate data flows and an organisational model that was often difficult to scale.

This model is changing.

Today, international marketplaces enable brands and retailers to enter new markets much more quickly, without systematically having to deploy a complete local e-commerce infrastructure. Amazon, eBay, Zalando, AliExpress and Temu provide access to large audiences, with established acquisition and conversion mechanisms and, in some cases, logistics services already in place.

In this context, cross-border e-commerce is no longer simply a matter of commercial expansion. It has become a question of assortment management, product data quality, compliance and international execution.

According to the French E-commerce Federation’s 2024 Key E-commerce Figures, 65% of French e-commerce businesses sell internationally, three percentage points more than in 2022, while 69% expect the proportion of their international sales to increase.

International expansion is therefore no longer reserved for a small number of highly mature businesses. It is increasingly becoming a widely adopted growth strategy.

What is cross-border e-commerce?

Cross-border e-commerce, also known as international or transnational e-commerce, refers to the online sale of products or services between a seller based in one country and customers located in one or more other countries.

In the context of marketplaces, cross-border commerce involves much more than simply making a product visible from abroad. It requires businesses to coordinate:

• Languages and product content;
• Prices and currencies;
• Taxes and fiscal obligations;
• Stock, deliveries and returns;
• Regulatory requirements;
• The specific requirements of each marketplace and market.

A business can therefore maintain a relatively centralised organisation while selling its products in several countries. However, this increased accessibility does not mean that international success has become automatic.

Cross-border commerce is scaling because it is becoming more accessible

One of the major changes in recent years has been the simplification of certain international expansion mechanisms, particularly within the European Union.

Partially simplified European taxation

From a tax perspective, the OSS, or One Stop Shop scheme, allows eligible sellers to register in a single Member State to declare and pay VAT due on B2C distance sales made across several EU countries.

Previous national distance-selling thresholds have been replaced by a single EU-wide threshold of €10,000 for certain cross-border B2C services and sales.

The system reduces administrative requirements, but it does not eliminate all local tax obligations. For example, the country in which goods are physically stored may create additional VAT registration requirements.

Pan-European logistics solutions

From a logistics perspective, Amazon offers several programmes designed to facilitate sales across European markets, including:

• Pan-European FBA;
• The European Fulfilment Network;
• Different shipping arrangements between European Amazon marketplaces.

Amazon’s Pan-European FBA programme allows eligible sellers to distribute their inventory across Amazon’s European logistics network, helping them offer shorter delivery times and reduce certain shipping costs. However, Amazon specifies that the United Kingdom has not formed part of the Pan-European FBA programme since 1 January 2021. A project described as “European” must therefore take account of the differences between the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and other markets across the continent.

In the fashion and lifestyle sector, Zalando Fulfilment Solutions also provides an end-to-end fulfilment service. Products are stored within Zalando’s pan-European network, after which Zalando manages orders, returns, refunds and part of the customer service process. It is now much easier to enter new countries. However, that does not mean it is easy to perform successfully in them.

The real challenge is not entering countries, but remaining relevant within them

This is often where the difference lies between an international presence that is merely “open” and a genuinely effective cross-border strategy.

Selling through a foreign marketplace does not mean copying and pasting a domestic product catalogue across several local storefronts. It requires businesses to meet requirements relating simultaneously to:

1. Content localisation;
2. Taxation;
3. Logistics;
4. Regulatory compliance;
5. Assortment composition.

1. Localise content rather than simply translating it

The first instinct is often to translate product titles and descriptions. This step is essential, but it is not sufficient. On international marketplaces, product page performance also depends on adapting attributes, search terms, categories, units of measurement, commercial selling points and required regulatory information.

Amazon offers tools such as Build International Listings, which enables sellers to create or synchronise offers across several international Amazon stores. The tool makes international deployment easier, but automatically generated or translated content must still be reviewed and adapted to the destination market.

Properly localised content must take account of:

• The vocabulary used by local consumers and their search keywords;
• The product benefits valued in that market;
• Expected units, formats and local sizing systems;
• The platform’s categorisation requirements;
• Country-specific regulatory or informational statements.

This is precisely where a platform combining MDM, PIM and DAM capabilities, such as MaPS System, becomes strategically important.

The challenge is not simply to manage several translations. It is to govern multi-country content from a single product data repository, with variations by language, country or channel, validation workflows and strict enrichment rules.

In a cross-border strategy, a PIM is not merely an operational convenience. It becomes a tool for managing international complexity.

2. Manage taxation without restricting growth

International marketplace expansion requires a clear understanding of VAT rules, the OSS scheme, sales and storage countries, and required declarations. The European Commission’s official OSS portal provides information about the rules governing intra-EU distance sales.

In practice, physically storing goods in another Member State may create local tax obligations, even when using the OSS. For example, Lengow’s operational documentation on Zalando Fulfilment Solutions states that a German VAT number is mandatory for using the ZFS service.

A successful cross-border project depends on the ability to connect correctly: the country of sale, the country of storage, the logistics model, the marketplace being used, and the corresponding tax obligations.

3. Treat cross-border logistics as a commercial lever

A cross-border proposition cannot succeed unless delivery times, shipping costs, returns and product availability are properly controlled.

Not all products are equally suitable for cross-border commerce. Some may become too expensive to transport, too bulky, fragile, or insufficiently profitable in certain markets.

With MaPS System, the objective is to structure logistics data with the same level of rigour as marketing and commercial data: weight, dimensions, units, packing information, hazardous materials, storage requirements and associated documents.

A product should not simply be theoretically saleable abroad. It must be genuinely exportable under controlled economic and operational conditions.

4. Treat compliance as a condition of market access

Within the European Union, CE marking applies to specific product categories. Products not subject to CE marking remain governed by general rules, including the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) applicable since 13 December 2024.

A cross-border marketplace strategy must integrate the management of regulatory markings, declarations of conformity, safety instructions and responsible operator details.

A platform such as MaPS System allows businesses to model the required validation criteria before publication to secure international publication and prevent regulatory delays.

How cross-border commerce changes assortment strategy

Historically, an international assortment was often a simple subset of the domestic catalogue translated into other languages. This approach quickly reaches its limits.

A cross-border assortment should now be considered as:

A specific assortment governed by data, local demand, compliance, profitability and operational feasibility.

Why MaPS System is becoming a practical driver of cross-border strategies

In an international expansion project, MaPS System enables you to:

• Centralise the product repository within a multi-country model;
• Manage localised content by language, market and distribution channel;
• Structure technical, commercial, logistics and regulatory attributes;
• Industrialise enrichment and validation workflows;
• Apply strict product eligibility rules.

The role of artificial intelligence in making a catalogue export-ready

When artificial intelligence is integrated into the PIM (via MaPS AI), it helps accelerate content translation, missing attribute suggestions, data extraction from supplier documents and product categorisation.

When integrated into a robust PIM, AI can significantly reduce the time required to make a catalogue localisable, compliant and genuinely export-ready.

Cross-border marketplaces are fundamentally a product data structuring challenge

In 2026, cross-border marketplaces are no longer simply an opportunistic source of growth: they have become a long-term organisational and data challenge.

The central question for your organisation is therefore:

“Are we capable of making our assortment genuinely deployable internationally in a profitable, compliant and controlled manner?”