Global e-commerce is in the midst of its most ambitious expansion yet. The demand for American products is surging across international markets, with cross-border e-commerce projected to reach $1.47 trillion in 2025 and continue growing at nearly 18% annually through 2032. Walmart and Amazon are leading this charge, building platforms that connect millions of global buyers to U.S. sellers.
But growth at this scale comes with hard questions. Tariff changes, customs delays, and unpredictable shipping timelines remain persistent barriers to trust. Sellers struggle to manage international compliance, and customers hesitate to buy when costs and delivery times feel uncertain. This is where AI-driven product strategy and a disciplined approach to problem-solving are making a difference.
Balaji Solai Rameshbabu, a product lead at Walmart Marketplace, with over eight years of experience driving global e-commerce expansion at Amazon and Walmart, offers a valuable lens on this transformation. He has spearheaded cross-border initiatives that brought U.S. goods to more than 150 countries, using AI and data to refine customer experience, optimize pricing, and streamline delivery. At the forefront of scaling international marketplaces, Balaji has pioneered AI-driven product strategies that connect millions of customers worldwide.
His structured framework, asking what the problem is, why it matters, who it impacts, how to solve it, and when to act, breaks down the complex challenges of scaling global marketplaces into clear, actionable steps.
Global E-Commerce and the Scale Challenge
The global appetite for U.S. products is growing faster than ever. Walmart Marketplace onboarded nearly 44,000 new sellers in the first five months of 2025, while Amazon continues to maintain its massive seller base in the millions. Yet seller growth doesn’t automatically translate into smoother cross-border transactions. Many platforms still fall short on the fundamentals, transparent pricing, reliable delivery estimates, and integrated customs management.
This disconnect stems from a rush to scale before solving core operational issues. Adding more sellers may boost short-term GMV, but without reliable cross-border logistics, it erodes customer trust. Balaji emphasizes starting with clarity. His framework begins with defining the real problem before building solutions. For instance, if international cart abandonment rates are high, the “what” might be lack of upfront duty information rather than insufficient shipping speed. And the “why” is obvious, hidden costs directly impact conversion rates and seller revenue.
Balaji’s own experience reinforces this principle. During Amazon’s Prime Singapore launch, adapting U.S. Prime delivery standards—and its broader catalog of American goods and entertainment services—to local networks proved critical in building trust before scaling further. Similarly, his work helping integrate Souq into Amazon and complete its transition into Amazon’s global ecosystem aligned Middle Eastern operations with global service standards, improving delivery consistency for millions of customers before expanding into new categories.
Both Walmart and Amazon are beginning to address this by building scalable marketplace platforms with better compliance and logistics integrations. Still, as Balaji notes, the key is sequencing. High-volume trade lanes like U.S.–Canada or U.S.–Mexico can be optimized first, proving out solutions before scaling globally. In cross-border commerce, rushing to expand categories or markets without this focus risks compounding existing inefficiencies.
“Platforms often think scale starts with adding sellers,” Balaji notes. “But true scale starts with solving the problems that make those sellers successful internationally.”
AI-Driven Product Strategy and Business Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is changing how global e-commerce platforms decide what products to sell, where to place them, and how to price them. Walmart and Amazon are investing heavily in AI-driven product strategy, combining real-time demand forecasting with automated duty and tax calculations. These systems help sellers identify high-potential SKUs for international markets while reducing costly pricing errors.
But technology only delivers results when guided by the right questions. Balaji’s framework reinforces this. The “what” should be specific and measurable, are sellers losing sales due to incorrect tax estimates or poor demand forecasting? The “who” must consider all stakeholders, sellers, customers, and operations teams. Only then should platforms decide “how” AI can intervene, whether through business intelligence dashboards for sellers or predictive pricing tools that adjust for international duties.
Balaji’s experience demonstrates how data-led testing can inform these larger AI strategies. His involvement in international free-shipping pilots, including tests in Israel and expedited delivery experiments in Australia, revealed how transparent pricing and targeted delivery incentives could shift buyer behavior significantly, boosting conversions without inflating operational costs. These experiments shaped subsequent global pricing models, validating the principle that small, controlled tests should precede large-scale AI rollouts.
“AI isn’t a silver bullet,” Balaji explains. “It only works when you ask the right questions first—what’s broken, who’s impacted, and how you’ll measure success.”
The Key to Winning Cross-Border Commerce
The future of global e-commerce will be shaped by platforms that combine AI-driven product strategy, disciplined cross-border logistics innovation, and an unwavering focus on customer trust. Walmart and Amazon are already showing what this future might look like, but success will depend on how thoughtfully they sequence their moves.
Balaji’s structured approach serves as a reminder that scaling global access to American products is not a race to move fastest. It is a process of solving the right problems in the right order. Platforms that adopt this mindset, leveraging AI where it delivers clear, measurable value and prioritizing customer confidence over sheer speed, will define the next chapter of cross-border commerce.
“The winners in cross-border commerce won’t be the fastest movers,” Balaji concludes. “They will be the ones solving the right problems, in the right order, for the right people.”
