Dive Brief:

• Newegg on Thursday unveiled plans to expand to dozens of countries in key parts of Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, according to a press release sent to Retail Dive. Once complete, the online electronics retailer will reach customers in 50 countries. 

• Newegg announced its global expansion at Newegg Seller Day in London, an event for hundreds of aspiring e-commerce sellers to learn how to navigate the challenges of cross-border selling. The company’s global expansion will operate in beta as it adds local sellers and as country-specific merchandise selection adjusts to local demand, the company said.

• International customers will be identified via their IP addresses and automatically directed to the appropriate country-specific Newegg storefront, or a pull-down menu will offer the option of selecting a country. In beta, the sites are in English, but international customers will have access to native-language customer support, with telephone support in 10 languages and plans for more as needs emerge. Foreign-language chat support will be available in some of those languages, with the ability to transfer to telephone support if a particular language isn’t possible through chat, the company said.

Dive Insight:

Newegg has some tough competition, at home and abroad. Amazon has dominated the electronics category, accounting for a whopping 90% of the $5.6 billion growth in consumer electronics sales posted nationwide in 2015, according to a note last year from Deutsche Bank analysts. Five years ago, Amazon had 6.2% share and ranked No. 4 on the list of top 100 U.S. electronics retailers; today, it's No. 2 with 17% share, ahead of Walmart. 

Consumer electronics sales grew 28% at Amazon in 2015, compared to same-store sales increases of 4.3% at Apple and 3.8% at Best Buy. That’s given leader Best Buy a run for its money and helped fell Hhgregg, which filed for bankruptcy in March and, unable to find a buyer, announced plans to shutter all stores in April. 

But Newegg has quietly forged ahead with innovative moves like the effort announced in January to showcase products financed through Indiegogo crowdfunding campaigns. The company has also dedicated its legal team to fighting so-called patent trolls, which can be discouraging to smaller e-commerce players.

With retailers in many sectors looking for growth abroad, Newegg’s global expansion will help both customers and marketplace sellers, the company said. Newegg sellers enjoy a lineup of services that help them operate on the international stage, including shipping and customer service to any country or combination of countries in which Newegg operates.

“Everyone around the world wants the latest tech products and we’re growing our global footprint to meet this vast customer demand,” Newegg CEO Danny Lee said in a statement. “Millions of customers in our established markets shop Newegg for great prices on the best tech products. Today we’re excited about building a similar rapport with new customers in the additional countries we’re now serving.”