U.S. digital businesses looking for new customers in Europe face a costly challenge: navigating unfamiliar tax rules, payment systems, and local buying preferences without making extensive upfront investments. New services aim to help sellers test overseas demand before committing to local operations.
For online businesses facing high customer acquisition costs in the U.S., European markets may offer opportunities to reach new audiences and improve returns on advertising spending. Results, however, depend on local competition, customer demand, and the cost of adapting marketing campaigns.
Francis Wolff, CEO of Digistore24, an online sales platform, said growing competition in the U.S. is encouraging established digital businesses to seek new audiences abroad. Rather than developing entirely new products, sellers can introduce successful U.S. offerings to new markets, although they must navigate value-added tax (VAT), local payment systems, and country-specific sales regulations.
“Many vendors are looking to Europe as the next major growth opportunity. But expansion should not require vendors to become experts in VAT, local payments, and market-specific operations,” Wolff told the E-Commerce Times.
New Tools for Cross-Border Expansion
Digistore24 provides online businesses with sales, payment processing, affiliate marketing, and compliance services. The company says its U.S. operation, launched in 2019, has facilitated more than $5 billion in cumulative sales.
In June, Digistore24 announced expanded services for vendors and affiliates selling digital and eligible physical products in Europe. The offering combines its existing merchant-of-record infrastructure, which handles many transactional and tax requirements, with a new Funnel Adaptation Service that tailors marketing campaigns to local audiences.
The Funnel Adaptation Service helps vendors modify sales pages, marketing messages, and product positioning for European audiences. Rather than simply translating existing U.S. campaigns, it aims to adapt them to local buying habits and customer expectations.
Taking Proven Products Abroad
Wolff said European expansion gives U.S. businesses access to additional customers while reducing their dependence on domestic sales and advertising markets.
U.S. businesses entering European markets must address VAT, payment processing, and consumer protection requirements. Depending on their business model, they may also need to establish local entities or obtain tax registrations. Those commitments can be hard to justify before a seller knows whether sufficient demand exists.
Wolff explained that Digistore24 operates as a merchant of record, acting as the legal reseller of eligible products and handling VAT collection, invoicing, localized checkout, and payment processing through its partners. This allows vendors to test European markets without building the same transactional infrastructure themselves.
“Digistore24’s Funnel Adaptation Service addresses the other half of the equation: adapting an existing offer and funnel for European audiences rather than simply translating it,” he said. “That changes the economics of international expansion.”
European Sales Show Early Demand
Digistore24 reports substantial European sales through its platform as U.S. vendors look to expand beyond their domestic market.
“We have more than 500 vendors already tapping into the European market, generating over €44 million in sales in the last 9 months,” said Alla Zaytseva, global expansion manager at Digistore24, in June. “The demand is already there. Vendors just needed a better way to access it.”
According to Wolff, the company’s merchant-of-record model allows U.S. vendors to sell through Digistore24 without establishing local European entities or obtaining their own VAT registrations for those transactions.
Sales infrastructure alone does not guarantee success in a new market. Even when sellers meet tax and payment requirements, their products may struggle to attract customers if their messaging, pricing, or checkout experience falls short of local expectations, Zaytseva said.
“A vendor can have a perfectly localized funnel that fails at checkout, or flawless e-commerce infrastructure behind an offer that simply doesn’t resonate,” she told the E-Commerce Times.
Translation Alone Is Not Enough
A sales funnel that performs well in the U.S. may not produce comparable results in Europe, even when accurately translated.
According to Zaytseva, U.S. direct-response marketing often emphasizes bold claims, urgency, countdown timers, and promotional testimonials. In German-speaking markets such as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, she said Digistore24 has found that credibility, professionalism, clear explanations, and transparent pricing can be more effective.
“Excessive urgency or exaggerated claims can actually reduce trust. Even though those three markets share a language, the experience still needs to feel local from terminology and tone to currency, checkout, proof points, and customer expectations,” she said.
For vendors entering new markets, localization can involve adjusting sales messages, website design, pricing presentation, payment options, and the overall purchasing experience. Digistore24’s Funnel Adaptation Service helps identify which of these elements may need to change for a particular market.
“We can audit the existing U.S. funnel and provide a specific blueprint for what should change for the target market,” said Zaytseva.
Cross-Border Costs and Delivery Risks
Cross-border challenges extend beyond digital products and European markets. For merchants shipping physical goods internationally, unexpected import charges, delivery delays, and complicated returns can discourage purchases. Research involving U.S. and Canadian consumers illustrates these concerns closer to home.
A May survey of 2,000 U.S. and Canadian consumers by international shipping and logistics provider Landmark Global found that hidden duties and taxes deterred 43% of respondents from shopping internationally. Nearly seven in 10 (69%) said they would be more likely to complete a purchase if those charges were prepaid at checkout.
Delivery expectations present another challenge. Landmark Global’s Cross-Border Confidence Index found that 64% of respondents expected international orders to arrive within two weeks, while 32% identified delivery delays as a concern. For merchants, the findings underscore the importance of providing accurate delivery estimates and disclosing the full purchase price before checkout.
Scott MacRae, CEO of Landmark Global, told the E-Commerce Times that merchants must navigate different customs regulations and documentation requirements when shipping goods across international borders.
“Many mid-market and scaling e-commerce brands still underestimate how quickly small classification or valuation errors can compound when volumes scale,” he said.
Such errors can cause shipment delays, customs audits, and unexpected duties, adding costs for merchants and potentially undermining customer confidence as international order volumes increase.
Testing Markets Before Investing
For U.S. businesses entering Europe, the cumulative burden of managing multiple operational requirements can be a greater obstacle than any single regulation, according to Wolff. A company focused initially on VAT requirements may soon find itself addressing local payment processing, invoicing, consumer rights, privacy regulations, currency conversion, refunds, and customer support.
“Each issue is manageable independently, but together they can transform a growth test into a multi-department infrastructure project. That is often where companies stall,” he said.
By consolidating payment processing, invoicing, and other transactional services, Digistore24 reduces the infrastructure vendors must establish independently to test European demand.
Vendors can then use sales data to assess customer demand, acquisition costs, and conversion performance before committing additional resources to international expansion.
“The principle is simple: reduce the cost and complexity required to learn whether the market works,” Wolff said.
