Craft Beer’s Cross-Border Journey

The global demand for top notch craft beer has aficionados frothing over access to foreign brews. Simultaneously, American beer makers are searching for ways to expand distribution and become international brands. At the intersection is Shannon Long, CEO of Brew Export, a turnkey service that handles legal, shipping and marketing logistics for U.S. breweries that want to gain exposure abroad.

PYMNTS caught up with Long to discuss her endeavor and how American craft beer is going cross-border.

Here’s a preview:

Like with any cross-border endeavor, however, Long’s operations occasionally run into roadblocks. As alcohol laws vary by country, Brew Export needs to ensure it fully understands the regulations surrounding labels and taxes for each market. One of Long’s recent challenges came as she attempted to get into the Brazilian market.

“[Brazil has] a whole craft beer movement, they love craft beer down there, I’m friends with tons of people on Facebook down there and I feel awful because at this point I just cannot get beer down to them. It’s a challenging market to enter and alcohol regulations are challenging,” Long explained. “Especially with me with the Olympics, I really would have liked to get beer down there. I’d love to get beer down there with all the events they have coming up, because there’s going to be so many Americans down there and people from around the world, but there’s just no way, not at this point.”

eCommerce opens borders
Recent cross-border headlines have focused on the continuing rise of eCommerce, which has become an essential tool for international and local trade alike. An eMarketer study found that by 2020, a quarter of Chinese residents will be making cross-border transactions via eCommerce sites. The study estimated that nearly 292 million Chinese consumers will spend $160 billion on international eCommerce sales over the next four years. A study from Research and Markets predicted that the global eCommerce market will expand at a CAGR of 16.42 percent between 2016 and 2020. This trend is largely being fueled by enhancements to mobile technology.

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About The Tracker

The PYMNTS X-Border Payments Optimization Tracker provides an organizing framework for evaluating the many players that help merchants optimize their cross-border clients effectively and efficiently.