This paper recommends a regional approach for e-commerce companies to expand into global markets. A regional approach is more appropriate over other approaches with respect to the e-commerce industry's critical success factors including overall economic development, infrastructure level, e-commerce related policies and cultural differences. This paper segments global markets into the eight world regions of North America, Latin America, West Europe, East Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and Oceania. The approach is substantiated by macroeconomic data including GDP, per capita GDP, phone subscriptions, cellular phone adoption and broadband penetration in these eight world regions. E-commerce companies are advised to use a regional approach to study the attractiveness of different world regions systematically, devise homogeneous strategies for the same regions and heterogeneous strategies across regions.