For many brands, marketplace expansion can be an untapped gold mine. Selling in more places and putting your product on more marketplaces can broaden your brand’s reach, act as a defence strategy against unauthorised sellers, and ultimately drive revenue.
But growing your brand internationally is a lot easier said than done. Marketplace expansion can be massively expensive and time-consuming. If you don’t perform your due diligence and expand wisely, your untapped gold mine can quickly become a financial sinkhole.
While it would be impossible to adequately cover every aspect of navigating marketplace expansion in one blog post, below we’ll present a few introductory ideas to keep in mind as your brand considers growing internationally.
Is your brand ready for marketplace expansion?
While it may be easy to decide to sell on additional domestic marketplaces, deciding whether to sell on international marketplaces is more complicated. Here’s what to keep in mind to help make that decision.
Are you established in your home market?
It’s best to hold off on international expansion until you’ve reached peak sales in your domestic market. If you’re only selling $1 or $2 million in your home market, it’s unlikely that you’ve reached your peak. Instead of focusing on internationalisation, you should be focusing on your homegrown market and building your reputation.
Are you financially ready?
If you have reached peak in your domestic market, you can then consider if you have enough capital to fully invest in other global marketplaces. Expanding to additional global markets isn’t cheap, and brands need to be prepared to cover regulatory costs, marketing spend, and other hidden fees. If you’re not prepared to invest, your expansion won’t be successful.
What are your international goals?
It’s also wise to establish your goals for launching your brand internationally. Once you hit a new market, it’s like setting up a new company — you probably won’t be profitable for three to five years. From the start, your strategy should be focused on the long-term. Entering international marketplaces isn’t a casual commitment that you can dip into and out of.
Do you have the resources?
Finally, ask yourself if you have the right resources and team members to facilitate a smooth international launch. You need to have a plan in place for reading reviews in foreign languages, speaking to international partners, arranging logistics, and following international regulations.
How Pattern can help
We have plenty of experience helping brands to successfully launch internationally, increase sales, and exceed their goals. By partnering with Pattern, we can facilitate this process and help you mitigate many of the risks of entering international marketplaces.
We can help you to craft an effective long-term strategy while avoiding typical mistakes. We can work with your brand to help you prepare and know when to expand—or, if you’ve already started the process, we can assess your progress and help you do even better and perfect your marketplace management. We have the resources, staff, services, and infrastructure to ensure your international launch goes as smoothly as possible.
Interested in learning more? Download our Marketplace Internationalisation Checklist to determine your brand’s readiness for expansion, or contact us today to talk to us about how we can support your brand on marketplaces around the world.
