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Expanding Your Ecommerce Business Internationally, with Andy Hooper

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Deal Closers Podcast Andy Hooper International Expansion

Expanding Your Ecommerce Business Internationally, with Andy Hooper

 

 

 

 

Global eCommerce sales are forecast to hit $6.3 Trillion in 2024, and the United States’ share of that is impressive, but it’s only about $1 Trillion a year. That means if you’re listening to this and you’re in the United States, international eCommerce is a little more than 80% of the market.

So, if we’re not looking internationally, we’re missing out. But how can we do that? And what are the roadblocks we need to be aware of?

Should You Consider an eCommerce International Expansion?

There are plenty of smart reasons why expanding eCommerce internationally is a smart idea. There are many advantages to consider if you want to expand in eCommerce and are eying a global expansion.

It’s great that your eCommerce store is now enjoying success in your home country, but those vibrant sales are a sign that it’s time to expand across the globe. This gives your online store an opportunity to:

  • Increase your customer base
  • Scale operations
  • Expand brand recognition.

 

eCommerce companies in the U.S. often go global for one of three top reasons.

First, they can attract a significantly large customer base in foreign markets. Once you determine your target markets, it’s possible some of your products can achieve even better sales overseas than here at home. Studies indicate that 40% of online shoppers have bought an item sold in another country, so today there is a higher level of trust among consumers that it’s safe to explore online stores that are not based in their home country.

Second, there are phenomenal opportunities for brand expansion. Having your brand recognized internationally provides huge benefits and new opportunities to boost profits. It does take some work since it’s important to ensure that your brand messaging reflects the cultures of international buyers.

Third, you can also scale your business much faster by making sales available internationally instead of relying entirely on buyers in the U.S. Expanding into international markets is all about reaching new customers on a global scale, which will escalate your growth considerably.

This is also a smart strategy to ensure you remain profitable and it helps keep your logistics costs down.

How Can You Create a Global eCommerce Strategy?

It may seem like selling internationally can be a challenge at first, but there are ways to make the process simpler. For example, if you have an Amazon platform, it’s easy to expand onto Amazon’s foreign marketplaces. The same is true if you have a Shopify website, which also helps you launch sales globally.

A good first step is to check your payment provider. Use providers such as PayPal, Visa, or Square that accept payments in other countries. Seek out payment providers that have a global reputation and are trusted by customers.  Post the payment provider’s logo on your website.

Since international shipping is more expensive than local shipping because of the distance involved, not to mention the cost of tariffs and local taxes, calculate in advance what shopping and handling costs will be per country, as well as fulfillment costs and any need for warehousing.

You can also offer different shipping methods depending on the country you’re selling in, with options that can include:

  • Slow or expedited shipping
  • Flat-rate shipping
  • Free shipping over a certain threshold
  • Real-time rates

 

Finally, you should optimize your online store for use by international buyers. Smart ways to do that include having a multi-language translator tool and creating landing pages tailored for different countries or regions. Let overseas buyers view a page in their language with a list of products available in their area.

What are Cross-Border eCommerce Best Practices

If you think your business is ready to expand to global markets, keep in mind that it’s become a lot more commonplace within the eCommerce industry to sell products online and ship them to international customers. Using platforms such as Amazon and Shopify, your products can easily cross borders from your online store.

While cross-border eCommerce isn’t new, it has been expanding dramatically in recent years. Today, global eCommerce is the new norm and a lot of customers have come to expect it.

If you’re now ready to make this move, here are some of the best practices for succeeding in cross-border eCommerce.

  • Pinpoint where your customer demographics are likely to be
  • Select the countries you want to ship to
  • Review the exporting costs and delivery taxes in those countries
  • Understand the local laws of those countries
  • Localize your online store to each new market
  • Select those markets where there is demand for your products
  • Check on possible trade restrictions in each country
  • Review how prices and taxes will affect each new market.

How to Expand your eCommerce Business

A smart way to begin your expansion is to find local partners for your international eCommerce expansion. There are several proven ways of doing that. You can:

1. Attend industry events and network at trade shows and conferences in your niche space, which holds the potential to meet prospective partners face-to-face.

2. Review platforms such as LinkedIn and Alibaba that connect businesses through online directories. Search for companies with related products or services.

3. Contact business associations such as your local chapter of the Chamber of Commerce to get information about local businesses in your niche.

4. Collaborate with distributors in your area who have experience in overseas markets.

5. Hire a consultant or financial advisor to guide you through the legal requirements and business practices of the foreign countries you’re targeting.

Localizing eCommerce for International Markets

eCommerce stores should consider localizing their sites because it helps merchants scale in new markets. Translation services are a good start: if you have a shop in English for the American market, consider getting it translated into French, Spanish, and other languages.

Consider these steps for localizing your shop:

  • Conduct research on your audience in international markets
  • Use photos and SEO to localize the site for the local market
  • Select  a payment processor trusted in the new markets
  • Ensure your content is consistent across all locations
  • Create new content that will resonate with the needs and interests of locals.

Andy Hooper eCommerce International Expansion Expert

Andy Hooper, CEO of 2, has been successfully expanding eCommerce brands into new markets for 15+ years. An accomplished specialist in eCommerce, Andy now works with companies around the world providing comprehensive gateways and solutions to new markets, especially US-based organisations transitioning into Europe. Starting from the ground up, Andy has carved out a niche inspired by his own experience and success of growing an organisation’s profits through e-commerce. With an infectious energy for success, Andy leads a team of professionals in all aspects of e-commerce. With fulfilment centres in the UK & EU, the Global E-Commerce team provide hassle-free end to end solutions that have helped 1000’s of sellers capitalise on the multi-billion dollar UK & EU markets. When not working, Andy can often be found enjoying sailing, cycling, and kayaking with his friends and family on England’s south coast.

Today’s episode of Deal Closers is hosted by Izach Porter, brought to you by WebsiteClosers.com, and is produced by Earfluence.

Transcript

Izach Porter: All right, you’re listening to the Deal Closers Podcast, brought to you by websiteclosers.com. A show about how to build your e-commerce business to be profitable, scalable and one day, even sellable. I’m Izach Porter and on the show today we have Andy Hooper from Global E-commerce Experts. He comes on the show to give us the inside scoop on how to take our businesses international.

Global E-commerce sales is now roughly at $6 trillion a year, and the United States share of that is impressive, but it’s only about $1 trillion. That means if you’re listening to this and you’re in the United States, international e-commerce is a little more than 80% of the entire global market. So if we’re not looking internationally, we’re missing out.

But how do you make the move to bring your brand internationally when you’re a US predominated company? Let’s talk to Andy and find out. Hey Andy, how you doing today, man?

[Andy Hooper: Hey Isaac, thanks very much for having us. I’m [00:01:00] doing great. Thank you, thank you very much.

Izach Porter: Cool. All right. So, uh, Andy tell us a little about what the international e-commerce market looks like, right now.

Andy Hooper: Yeah, the, uh, you know, e-commerce as a whole is, you know, is still actually very, very new, you know, … you know, lots of us have been involved in it for some time. You know, the, the, the route to growing and scaling the business is that international piece, without any shadow of doubt. And those numbers you picked out really, really highlight that.

As a brand owner, as most e-com sellers are, the opportunity to grow and scale your business further is without any share of doubt international. When you start looking at the numbers for different regions of the world, you know, the states is, one significant player, but it isn’t the majority. And typically, when people wanna expand and grow their brand, there’s easy ways and difficult ways to do that.

You know, taking it to English speaking countries to start off with, cause, you, in an English-speaking country, [00:02:00] that sort of makes sense, right? But there, there are some easy wins and some, some, um, slower wins. But ideally when you looking to expand, typically we are talking to our clients. We tell them they should be expecting sort of a, 80% of their US sales in the first sort of phase of expansion.

Izach Porter: Awesome. So what areas are you seeing internationally right now that have the fastest growth in e-commerce?

Andy Hooper: So, I think some of the fastest areas are things, you know, we, we are moving out of a period where we’ve had the c word, we’ve had COVID, you know. The, the things that sold really, really well during covid are actually coming down in sales, you know. People bought things they can do outside, for two years.

So, actually some of the outdoor types of products are actually slowing down in sales in comparison to some of the other things, you know. We are moving into the r word recession potentially. You know, things that sell well in that times are board games, card games, things that people can do at [00:03:00] home with their families, you know, a, a relatively affordable way. So, we are starting to see, I think, you know, Q4 for us, which is the period.

Izach Porter: So, let me ask you this, um, you know, we’ve seen, uh, we’ve seen that we’ve seen a pullback in sales from the companies that we’re representing and talking to between, 21 and 22. But if I’m comparing 22 over 2019, the companies have still trended up. And if you look at a, uh, kind of a compounded annual growth rate, we’re essentially on track for the growth rate that we had pre COVID. 

So Andy, when you’re thinking about what markets, uh, internationally outside of the US, um, are growing the fastest, what, what are you seeing right now?

Andy Hooper: So, the fastest growing markets outside of the US, and if you look at the, the charts, if you like, Japan is next after the US. After that you’ve got the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Australia comes a bit further down.

Izach Porter: Are you talking about the growth rate or the total share of e-commerce as a, as a percentage to retail? 

Andy Hooper: Well that’s the share of e-commerce. And the reason I go by that number rather than the, the scale of which they’re growing, so Spain, for example, is probably the fastest growing out of all of them. But the problem is it’s really small in the first place. So, when you are, when you are really small, the you, you’re just catching up on that whole time. 

And you know that you sort of section each sort of, region, if you like, so Japan is one region, Europe’s another region. So, Europe is probably the biggest next piece outside of North America. And then outside of that is Japan, and you, I mean, but when you start looking at opportunity like India’s, Russia, you, China, all of those are massive opportunities, but they’re very, very complicated.

Izach Porter: Yeah. Complicated logistically or from a kind of legal and IP perspective or all of the above.

Andy Hooper: Just all of the above, I think would be fair to say. Um, I, I think, you know, [00:05:00] India I think is the most promising without any shadow of a doubt. I think the other two are just overcomplicated and we just avoid all costs.

Izach Porter: Gotcha. Okay. I want to think about this from two, two different perspectives because we, um, the majority of the companies that we work with and represent are US domicile businesses. Some of them have just expanded internationally already. Many of them are just focused on the, on the US market.

We also have a, a significant portion of our clients who are, uh, internationally domicile businesses in the, in the European Union, uh, Israel, China, Australia is a big market for us. Uh, and in, in a lot of cases, those companies haven’t moved to the US. So, what’s, what’s easier? Is it easier for a, an international, and I’m speaking from the term of a, of a, US perspective here.

[00:05:49] So international company coming into the US, or is it easier for an inter, a US company to move internationally, or is it, is it the same complexity in either direction?

Andy Hooper: To be honest, it depends on coming back to that account, just depends on the expertise, that’s the real within the business. I think that the US is the bigger opportunity for, for sellers. If they’re not in the US already. I think that’s definitely the, the, the place to start. But if you are already in the US, then actually the next market typically is the European market, which is the next biggest without shut of doubt.

Izach Porter: We’re, we’re very focused on, on the EU, uh, and the UK, as expansion markets for our work at Website Closers, because we see so much deal flow out of those countries. Um, but tell me a little more about Global E-commerce Experts. So, what do you, what do you do exactly for your clients? How do your services work?

How’s the business monetized? You know, what, what’s the business model?

Andy Hooper: So, we successfully expand us e-commerce brands into Europe. That’s our core, uh, market, that’s what we do. Now, when you’re expanding to a new market, the problem comes where if you’re in a new region, or you’re, you’re expanding to a new continent. There’s so many different things that you need to understand. It becomes overcomplicated and you almost overcomplicated and never do it because it just seems too complicated. 

And there’s so many different agencies and support information out there that, typically you need 20 different agencies or service providers to enable that to happen. So, what we did is we basically pulled that all under one roof. So, when someone wants to expand, we solve all their logistics problems, all their compliance problems, and run all their accounts for them and manage the day to day for them should they need it. 

So the ideal being that we’re a service provider, that when someone wants to expand, we could hold their hand and do everything for ’em, everything from picking their stock up from the factory in China or set other location all the way through to B2B and B2C fulfillment right here, including all the business and product compliance that makes it happen.

Izach Porter: Awesome. Well, that’s, that’s huge. So how, how do you, how do you charge for that? Is it a percentage of sales? Is it a fixed fee? Is it, uh, you know, what’s, what does that look like?

Andy Hooper: So, we’re a service provider, so what we do is we charge per service typically, and the more services that you use, the better discounts we can give on, you know, across, the range of services because we’re already doing lots of different things. So, that’s, that’s typically how we work, we charge per service, we’re a service provider, our consultancy comes for free, our growth managers that help you scale to get 80% of your sales in the US, come for free. 

So we, we do all the consultancy and nice to do stuff for free, but we provide the services to enable it to happen. And it, it’s no different to having, you know, someone do your shipping and you pay for the container, or someone do the customs, or someone do the 3PL and all the rest of it, it’s exactly the same. 

We just put that all under one roof to make that easy for people. And when it comes to how do we fit in the market, typically we are not the cheapest, but we’re not the most expensive. We are mid-price range, but of course, by doing it all together, we save everyone money because it’s just easier for people.

Izach Porter: Interesting. Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And it seems like it’d be much, uh, much more simplified for the, for the brand owner. So, um, let me ask you a question. So, if, if, okay, and I’m, I’ve got, uh, an FBA business. Uh, I, I sell on the pet product space. Um, I wanna bring that, too, you know, I want to enter, let’s say all the markets in the European Union also got a Shopify site, and I’m, I’m D2C.

So let’s just say on the, on the Shopify D2C site, cause that’s, uh, somewhat different than the FBA model. Um, but do I need a URL for, uh, for the Netherlands and a URL for France and for Germany, uh, and for Spain and for Portugal and for the u, UK. I mean, UK seems like it’d be the easiest one because of the language. But do I need a, a language specific URL for each country, or is there a way, that I could have one, one site and effectively market to, you know, the, the clientele in each of those countries.

Andy Hooper: So, I’m gonna give you two answers to that and I know that doesn’t help. So, the first one is from a speed of launch. We’ll know that the quicker you get things done, the quicker to the market the better for the product. We’ll know that sales velocity’s key, we, we will get that. So, the first step, actually, it’s really about, yes, you can have, you, one storefront have multiple languages on that and make that happen.

[00:10:22] Yes, you can do that without any share of a doubt. The long-term play for that, and the disadvantage of that is that you can’t build up SEO ranking language you specific in each country. So, you know, when you’re starting, it’s fine, there’s no problem with you just having one site and having it, you translate no problems.

But when you try to build out further, you need to make sure that you do have, you know, .co.uk, in UK, .ed in Germany, .fr in France, and obviously the list goes on, but… 

Izach Porter: Okay, that makes sense. Cause when I’m, when I’m talking to brands, that are already, that are, let’s say, European Union based brands that are doing well. That’s what I see, typically, I see that they’ve got, they’ve got a URL for every country. And they’ve got, uh, a site that is in the native language of that particular country.

And, and so what you’re saying is they’re doing that for SEO ranking purposes, which makes total sense. Uh, I didn’t, I didn’t put that together, but that, that kind of ties it together. But you’re saying, better to get started with maybe one or two sites, get it up and running, and then build out the infrastructure of, of country specific sites for your products.

Andy Hooper: Yeah, and I think you, you’ve gotta have a launch strategy. You’ve gotta have a process to launch the business and decide, you, where’s gonna be best and where’s not gonna be best, you know. Typically for a lot of our sellers, they launch in the UK and Germany to start off with, whether that be Amazon or their own website, because it counts for the majority of sales in most cases. 

So, that’s a really good place to start. And as you start to see the sales pick up in France, Germany, uh, sorry, France, Poland, Switzerland, in the, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, wherever. You can then build out those next sites based on the data you’re seeing. And use the data to enhance your, your, uh, expansion plan.

Izach Porter: Awesome. Okay. That that makes, that makes a lot of sense. So, let me, let me roll that back a step further than talking about the data. So, how do I, if, if I’ve got a product right, how do I test and understand if there is a market for my product in Germany or France or the Netherlands or Spain or Japan? You know, how can I, how can I just, uh, find out if my product is going to sell before I make a big investment in a launch in a foreign country?

Andy Hooper: So, I, I, I think that, you know, there, there’s no golden bullet here, silver bullet, whatever you wanna call it, without any shadow of a doubt. You know, there’s two things to do. 

One, there’s market research beforehand. You’ve gotta check your competitors, you’ve gotta see what other people are doing. You’ve gotta see what the market is telling you, number one.

Number two, you need to find people in that region that can give you some tips and some advice without any shadow of a doubt. The third thing is about how can you enter the market at a reasonable price to test and validate your data and your processes and your ideas to know that it’s gonna work. So, typically, a lot of the sellers we work with and brands actually use something like Amazon.

As a great testing platform when they’re on multiple marketplaces and multiple websites and things like that in you, in their home market, in the US, wherever that might be. Actually, Amazon’s a really good test bed for that, because what you can do is you can send your products into, uh, you know, into the new region if you like, and everything’s sort of done for you.

You sort of understand Amazon’s got this perfect little seller central that, you know, you still understand it’s not different. I mean, alright, there’s a few tweaks and differences between one seller central and another in different regions. But, broadly it’s exactly the same thing you see, and you can use that as a validation tool to help you make a decision without any shadow of a doubt.

Izach Porter: Okay. That, that’s cool. I think that’s a great kind of iterative step to, to completing a full, a full product rollout and launch to, to test that market. So, let me ask you another question that I’ve been, this is just something I’ve been curious about. I’ve seen a few brands that I would think of as very, US market specific.

That have actually done incredibly well in, in European countries. And I’ll give you some specific examples. So, I, I, we, uh, sold a company that is mostly a, uh, a a t-shirt seller. Um, they’re on, they’re on Amazon’s FBAs company. But what was interesting to me is their, their t-shirts were all military t-shirts, so all US military t-shirts, apparel, hats, stuff like that.

They launched in Germany and killed it. They launched in France, fell flat on its face, sold nothing. And so, they were, you know, it was just really interesting to me that there was a market for somebody buying, you know, a a shirt that said Marines in Germany. Um, but the French didn’t sell at all. They tried rolling out German military apparel in Germany and it wasn’t that successful. 

So, just some interesting nuances to me. Uh, another one example that we had is we’ve got a company we sold… it’s in the firearms category and they make a, it’s a, um, an app and a, a digital laser device that goes in your gun, so you can practice without live ammunition.

Um, they for a long time thought that there would not be a market for that product in, in the EU at all. They had a distributor who started taking it to gun shows in France. Uh, did well, they launched in France. They’ve absolutely killed it because it turns out it’s hard to buy live ammunition in France.

And so people want to target practice without live ammo. And so that’s done really well. So, there’s, there’s some of these brands where I, I would, you know, I wouldn’t expect them to do well in these markets, but they’re killing it. And there’s other times where I would expect it to be internationally interesting, and it, and it hasn’t been, so, you know. Have you seen any scenarios like that and any kind of anecdotal stories you can share?

Andy Hooper: Yeah, they, I mean, loads exactly like that. You, you sort of see a product come across your, the desk like, oh, I’ve got a new client coming in, they wanna expand with this. You’re like, that is gonna kill it, totally agree. And then actually you then, you then start looking at the data as it comes through. And it’s not anywhere near as successful as you think it is, but then you get the complete opposite.

So, you know, as you were talking there, you, all of those things are completely down to the culture of the country and where you are launching and understanding the culture in those different regions and those different countries. You know, when we talk about Europe as a whole, you have, there’s 28 countries, so you know, you’ve got 28 different cultures you’ve gotta consider when you’re selling in those different countries, you know. And it’s no surprise to me that something worked in Germany and doesn’t work in France.

And exactly the opposite happens every single day. Things like supplements, kill it in France, don’t kill it in Germany. 

Izach Porter: Interesting. Yeah, that’s fascinating to me that those cultural differences are, are so interesting. And I think, and like really important to understand and test and, and, and then there’s ways to exploit them, right? And, and to, to really take advantage of those market opportunities. And there’s probably ways to lose a lot of money if you do it the wrong way as well.

Andy Hooper: Yeah, I think it’s understanding the culture, working out where the differences are. It’s not just the culture, it’s the, the, the changes in season every year, you know. There’s a complete wide range between, you know, southern Spain and Scotland, in the UK. You know, going into Norway, Sweden, and all these different countries, you know, it’s completely different, you know, landscape, different, you know, culture.

Everything is different. So, you have to bear in mind the product you’re selling, where will it sell best? You know, if you’re selling bedsheets a great example, you know, the bed sizes in the US and Europe are different. So, you, you can’t order the same size stock, it just doesn’t work. But you can order the same pattern.

You just have to get it made in a different size. So, there’s lots of examples like that where you know, you’ve got to do your market research before you expand to understand these nuances and do a test. You’ve gotta test and use the data.

Izach Porter: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think for me, you know, in, in our audience as you know, our e-commerce sellers that are thinking about an exit or planning for an exit or have at least that in their mind. What I’ve seen from a valuation perspective is that businesses that are selling internationally that are in more than one market, are perceived as less risky overall because they’re, they’ve got a broader array of distribution.

They’ve got a more, sophisticated, uh, logistics process set up. And because of that, they receive higher valuations. They’re getting, they’re getting paid for not only the extra sales that they’re generating, but the perception of having an inter, internationally recognized brand. And so, I think there’s, there’s value, um, of course, growing, growing your revenue and, and selling more products will always drive value in an exit process.

But there’s, on top of that, there’s a premium for brands that are selling internationally, that are in multiple countries because it shows that there’s broad appeal for the products, as well as this concept of, of risk diversification through through different, uh, com, companies, which makes the cash flow more, you know, less volatile and more certain, and therefore they get paid more for it.

So, um, I think there’s a real, uh, value proposition for businesses to think about expanding internationally to increase the value of their brand, as well as to grow the size of their business.

Andy Hooper: A hundred percent. I mean there’s, yeah, we work with a fair number of different players in the market and you know. When you, are you, thinking about a brand as a whole, one, the compliance in Europe is more complicated without any shadow of a doubt than it is in most regulations in the US. So, actually to, in order for a brand to expand into Europe, they’ve got to have done all that hard work first, in most cases.

So, they’re doing all that work. So, when someone buys the brand, they haven’t got that hurdle to overcome. So, the, the ability for them to expand their brands. And grow that and scale that is much better as whereas, you know, if you’ve got a brand that’s solely focused in the US. You. We work with a number of different aggregators where they buy a brand, they hand them to us and we get them all ready to go.

So they just, and they expand them and launch them straight away in Europe. But obviously you’ve got, all of the business compliance to do, you’ve got all the product compliance to do, you’ve got the logistics piece to solve, you’ve gotta make sure you can get stock in the region. And then you’ve gotta think about, well, no one’s seen our product in the region before.

How’s it even gonna go? What stock volume are we gonna have? So, there’s lots of things to consider. We definitely see, coming back to the real point there, that people with, they’ve already expanded to Europe, typically have a higher, uh, higher EBIT, that may, that that obviously makes life a little bit easier. And the multiple does tend to be slightly higher because of that ease to make stuff happen.

Andy Hooper: Without any share of a doubt, um, but yeah.

Izach Porter: And, and your business can, can handle all of those logistical issues that are needed to enter, uh, the marketing European com, the compliance, the regulatory piece, the, the shipping, the, you know, a three local 3PL’s. You guys can take that all off a seller’s plate.

Andy Hooper: Exactly that. All of that complicated stuff. So, I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve had loads of different businesses and I love solving problems for people. So, when we started working, I had an Amazon business myself, you know. When I started working with Amazon sellers to expand into Europe, I just gotta solve all these problems.

So every time they were like, a client said to me, oh, Andy, I’m having this problem with this, I’m like, let me solve it. Right? Shiny object syndrome let me solve that for the client. So basically, when someone expands exactly that, you know, the, the things that tie people up in knots is compliance, whether that be your taxes or the product compliance, we solve all that. 

And the thing that’s the most frustrating is the logistics. Whether it be getting product into the country or distributing it around Europe. You. We’ve got a shipping company, we’ve got a, we’ve got warehouses across the UK and Europe. We can distribute it. So, not only do we take away the pain of the compliance, which is just hugely annoying, and making sure your business is compliant and your product is compliant.

We solve all your headaches, which is the more frustrating part when you get further down the line. Because you just want it seamless and easily, basically, that’s the key isn’t it.

Izach Porter: Yeah. 

What am I not thinking about that I should be concerned with that I don’t know? You know. 

Andy Hooper: The key things that everyone trips them up, we’ve already discussed is the compliance, tax and product compliance, they’re the things that just tie everybody up. So, get those piece solved, that’s the key thing you need to understand. That’s, that’s the first thing. I think shipping your products in, you need to identify where you’re gonna ship your products to before you send them, obviously, because obviously, you gotta put someone’s address on it.

But you need to make sure that when you’re sending it in, your business is ready to go into that country. So, for example, if your products are made outside of Europe and you’re shipping into Germany, for example, Germany requires some things to do with your business to make sure your business has a entity in Germany, which of course, you won’t. 

So, there’s a few things you need to consider when you’re shipping into those countries. So, logistically wise, you need to make sure that you are fully set up and dialed in before you go in. You know, you’re launching those products without any shadow of a doubt. You need to make sure you’ve done the market research beforehand.

Like just don’t force foul of uh, what I’m sending this product in, oh, I can’t sell that product in France. You know, I can’t sell like fur, let’s take fur is a great example. You can sell that in France, but you can’t sell that in the UK. Great example, certain types of ammunition you can’t sell, like coming onto weapons.

There are certain things that you, you can sell in Germany, but you can’t sell anywhere else in Europe. So, depending on your product is gonna depend, you need to make sure you’re doing that first, like, is your product organic? Like, you know, as soon as you start putting things like organic on your labels, you’re gonna need to start going through a whole load of more regulatory checks to make sure that that’s okay.

Um, so they’re typically the things that get people most tied up in knots is the shipping. Do you need an importer record? Do you need, you know, what do you, what does your products look like?

Izach Porter: Yeah, man, I’m, I’m convinced I think the, uh, the next brand that I, that I acquire or, uh, or, or sell… I’ll recommend that the, that the buyer, you know, gets with you. So how, how are you measuring success with your, with your clients?

What are kind of the KPIs that you’re keeping an eye on to track whether the expansions are successful and how fast these brands are growing as a result of it?

Andy Hooper: So, our, our motto, vision, if you like, is to successfully expand e-commerce brands, that that’s our motto. And to do that in Europe, our track KPI is to get 80% of their US sales from day one. So let’s take a brand that’s doing a million … they come to us today and they do, uh, sorry, a million dollars.

They’re doing a million dollars. Our target is to get ’em to 80% of that in the first 12 to 12 to 36 months. Now, it depends on the brand, it depends on how about their launch strategy, it depends on the whole load of factors. But our target that we’ve got growth managers who work with our clients is to get them to 80%.

That’s the target, that’s the KPI, and of our clients, we are seeing that it typically takes 26 months on average to get there. Bear in mind, our average client is five to 20.

Izach Porter: Awesome. That’s a huge growth rate on those companies. So, and are, are you handling, uh, I don’t think I’ve asked you this, but are you handling also paid advertising for, these specific countries that the, that your clients are moving into?

Andy Hooper: We do have an account management process that helps run accounts for them, no problems there at all. We don’t do Google ads, SEO type ads. We do work with marketplaces like Amazon where we can run your Amazon accounts for you. We basically are what we would class as your outsourced expert in the region.

What we are not is your pay per click expert, your listing optimization expert, your you, meta tag expert, and all the, all the other bits that you might spend thousands of dollars on [00:28:00] individually for your brand in the US. So, we are outsourced day to day expert, not your guru on ads in Europe. If that makes sense.

You know, so you can trust us to run your account, and we can do your ads and we can do those sort of things. But we’re only gonna do them on a day to day basis to get your account up and running and set it, set up, not to skyrocket that and give you all these claims under the roof that most agencies don’t even get to.

Izach Porter: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, maybe that’s another podcast. But yeah, we’ve seen, I’ve certainly seen a lot of, uh, a lot of major fails with, with, uh, digital marketing agencies especially, uh, in the last 18 months. So if there’s a call to action, Andy, that you want our listeners to take from this conversation, what, what would that be.

Andy Hooper: There’s two. One, expansion is easier than you think, if you’re working with the right partners. There’s a huge amount of content out there that can support you, guide you, help you, advise you and everything else. Go listen to that content. We’ve got a huge amount on our podcast. So Global E-commerce Expanders, you can go and listen to that.

We tell you exactly what to do, how to do it, you can go and absorb all the information. But don’t think that expansion is difficult, the process is simple and easy. And the second part of that is to make that simple and easy. We devised based on having done this for 2,000 clients, a simple seven step strategy that can help you to expand.

So, you can go to our website, /podcast, and you can download our seven-step guide. And now go to, if you Google Global E-commerce Experts, you’ll find our website and just do, /podcast. There’s a, it’s not behind any wall, so you haven’t gotta put your email in or anything like that.

You can just go and download it, and then if you’re interested and wanna learn more, you can get in contact with us.

Izach Porter: Awesome. What is the best way for our listeners to, to contact, you know, you and Global E-commerce Experts?

Andy Hooper: So, to get in contact with Global E-commerce Experts, just go to this, your favorite social channel, or go to the website if that works, best, and just Google Global E-commerce Experts, or search on that channel, and you’ll find us, and you can get in contact with us. If you wanna get in contact with me directly, you can contact me. I’m Andy Hooper and I’m on LinkedIn and you can pretty much guarantee you’ll find me there.

Izach Porter: Yup, I, I looked you up already. You’re definitely there. I sent you a connection request this morning, so, um, yeah. We’ll, we’ll, uh, we’ll stay connected. I’ve got a lot of clients, Andy, that I think could. Uh, really benefit from your services. It makes complete sense what you’re doing to me. It’s a huge market opportunity and it’s a major value driver for the clients that we’re working with, to expand into, into European and, and other global markets, major opportunities, some really low hanging fruit in those markets.

And it’s, you know, having somebody who’s been there, done that, would make it a lot, a lot easier for them to, uh, to, to know that they’re not, gonna make mistakes along the way, which are gonna cost them a lot more money, than just, you know, getting an expert involved from the get go, so.

Thanks everyone. That was Andy Hooper, CEO of Global E-Commerce Expert, which again, you can find at globale-commerceexperts.com. That’s globale-commerceexperts.com. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of the Deal Closers Podcast, brought to you by websiteclosers.com. If you like the show, be sure to rate us, write a review, press the follow button and share it with your network.

And of course if you’re looking he, for help selling your e-commerce business, be sure to visit websiteclosers.com. This episode was edited and produced by Earfluence. I’m Izach Porter, follow me on LinkedIn, and we’ll see you next time on the Deal Closers Podcast.

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