For U.S.-based retailers, running a successful global e-commerce business takes the right balance of strong local marketing and effective operations. While it is essential that retailers cater to local customer experience expectations, it is also critically important to abide by local laws and regulations. Following are six recommendations on how to drive effective global e-commerce for retailers that are just starting to sell online internationally as well as those that want to refine their current global strategy.

For foreign companies looking to dip a toe in the fresh pool of Chinese e-commerce space, the waters are warm and inviting. After all, China’s middle class will swell to about 800 million people in the next 20 years, according to Acquity Group, a brand e-commerce and digital marketing firm that just released a new report on the Chinese digital market. Chinese online consumers have a total spending income of more than $2.7 trillion. The population is widely distributed, the report finds, but the Internet and mobile penetration rates are growing, reaching 34% in January 2011 with about 457 million users.

When Etao made its first dubut in late last year, Taobao positioned and touted the service as a price engine for online buyers. Taobao spun off Etao as an independent company in an aim to serve the best interests of online hunters by helping them find the best deal online through price comparison and more. In this month, Alibaba announced investing US$ 157 million (RMB 1 billion) into the Taobao portfolio, aiming to help boosting 3rd party ecommerce sites’ online exposure and traffic.

Expanding into foreign markets just became easier with today’s launch of Export Now (www.exportnow.com), which provides a one-stop, e-commerce solution to help businesses of any size efficiently, and inexpensively export to China. Export Now launched its solution today at an event in Washington, D.C., that featured Francisco J. Sánchez, Under Secretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce. President Obama’s National Export Initiative, which calls for a doubling of the nation's exports to support creating two million jobs in the next five years, was launched to encourage small businesses to grow through exporting. And while the idea of entering foreign markets can seem daunting, the launch of Export Now eliminates the biggest challenges of doing business abroad by affordably bridging the cultural and financial gaps of complex foreign markets, such as China.

The Ministry of Public Security has launched a nationwide campaign to crack down on online black markets selling illegal goods including weapons and human organs, the ministry said Monday. The campaign, to last till February next year, is to investigate and punish online trafficking of items such as guns, explosives, some kinds of knives, highly poisonous chemicals, wiretapping software, fake identity cards, counterfeit money, personal information and human organs, the ministry said in a statement. The police will not only shut down websites that are implicated or punish their owners, but suspend related phone numbers and online accounts and impose penalties on the offenders, the statement said.

Alibaba first took hold of the e-commerce market in May of 2003 with Taobao and its highly lucrative  subsidiary, TMall. After claiming over 30% of the market share of e-commerce in China, Alibaba has started expanding into associated markets.

Alibaba recently launched ETao.com, a search engine for e-commerce websites in China which includes product listings and prices. 360buy.com, a Chinese competitor of Taobao, has responded to this by blocking their website from being listed on the search engine, though product listings are still present. Alibaba has also announced plans for Alipay to go global, putting it in direct competition with eBay’s PayPal as the premiere online payment platform. Alipay is already the world’s largest online payment platform with over 600 million users and by expanding globally Alipay may soon tower over its Google-born competitor PayPal.

In an effort to compete for customers in the group buy market, Alibaba has said  it has plans to enhance its Juhuasuan Daily-Deal service and launch it from its Taobao B2C platform. China’s daily-deal market was recently recorded by The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) as having 42.2 million users during the first half of 2011 in China. Alibaba’s aggressive expansion into the market makes it clear that they intend on moving in swiftly.

Further Reading:

E-Commerce Site 360Buy Blocks Alibaba’s Product Search Engine

Rumor: Alipay Going Global, a Huge Online Payment Threat to Paypal

Alibaba to Spin Off Its Juhuasuan Daily-Deal Business

Report: 42.2 Million Chinese Use Daily Deals Sites [STATS]

More and more indie designers are emerging in China and they need a place to connect them with potential buyers. Founded by media veteran Zhao Jinwen, Wowsai is positioned to be such a platform for indie designers and people who prefer quality products and craftsmanship. Its categories cover clothes, gadgets, stationary, accessories, shoes, bags, home accessories and so forth. Except for buying online, you can also create a "Gallery" to collect all the interesting stuff, just like the "Treasury" feature for Etsy. Yes, be it layout or features, Wowsai looks exactly like Etsy, the e-commerce website focused on handicrafts or vintage items as well as art and craft supplies launched on June 18, 2005 with sales of over US$ 420 million last year. From 'Made in China' to 'Designed in China'

Think about your product being the first one in a Chinese city full of hundreds of thousand of upmarket discretionary spenders. If the current research has got it right, China is the new test bed for trendy items and serious brand big box purchases. Bragging rights to a unique and exclusive item might be worth sending samples of, just to get the buzz value and and let consumer interest grow. One sandwich box or branded frisbee might get thousands of clicks o the dot-com of choice. Savvy B2B managers should be compiling ideas for doing small to medium size business ventures with Chinese businesses, since China’s e-commerce market is scheduled to surpass the United States trade commerce volume by the year 2015. If online shopping is tabling off in the North American retail markets of b2b and online commerce, the Chinese intend to spend trillions of renminbi on products online. Devices, applications, games and books are ready to buy online.

Companies in Greater China are lining up to sell shares in initial public offerings in coming months, braving jittery markets with $11.2 billion in deals. Issuers are betting the steep rebound in Hong Kong and Chinese markets in the past month might signal renewed appetite for offerings that would provide funding for expansion and takeovers.

As part of the ongoing Export Expert series hosted by the World Trade Center Utah, former Under Secretary of Trade for the U.S. Department of Commerce Frank Lavin engaged a large, attentive audience of Utah companies with a clear and valuable guide to exporting their products. Frank Lavin began his presentation by describing three key developments in the world economy, all of which should provide companies with a significant incentive to seriously consider exporting. Those three factors include the emergence of three billion new customers as China and later India, move into market economies; the death of distance, referring to the rapid decline of geography as a constraint on business; and the erosion of trade barriers through various free trade agreements.