Step 6: Develop New Channels

Go Global

Are you ready to export? It’s not as daunting as you might think, even on a thin budget. With all the systems, resources and communication methods available today, going global is easier than ever.

A few things that can make a huge difference in an effort to develop international channels include the following:

Try to ally with in-market experts

Whenever possible, forge relationships with people who have experience, and even better, operations in the market you’re going to pursue.

Ensure that your intellectual property is protected and that you’re willing to diligently fight off any copycats

Give a strong review of your trademarks, designs, patents and copyrighted material (especially in the area of software) before going global.

Be ready to adapt your offering to the market you’re pursuing

This can include modifications to language, branding, packaging and pricing.

A valuable resource to tap is the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), an independent U.S. government agency that helps finance the overseas sales of U.S. goods and services. In 65 years, Ex-Im Bank has supported more than $300 billion in U.S. exports.

Ex-Im Bank provides guarantees of working capital loans for U.S. exporters. It also guarantees the repayment of loans and makes loans to foreign purchasers of U.S. goods and services. You can also get credit insurance against the risk of non-payment by foreign buyers for political or commercial reasons.

Ex-Im Bank supports the sales of U.S. exports worldwide. In recent years, its focus has shifted to developing nations, whose economies are growing at twice the rate of industrial nations.

U.S. banks can help you work out the logistics of foreign exchange rates. Their foreign exchange services (“hedging” products) allow you to lock in a price for future shipped goods, based on the current value of the U.S. dollar. Using such products is prudent business practice, because they protect your profits from sudden market fluctuations.

Tip

Plan ahead for foreign languages (Ne négligez pas la France!)

If you are aiming to grow your business into foreign markets, don't forget to embed the possibility of adding foreign language versions when designing your website. Make sure you address this issue with your web designer from the very beginning.

It will rule out many problems that could (and probably will) occur if you change your mind and decide to offer your site in another language afterwards.

By the way, don't rely too much on online machine translation engines. More often than not, machine translation is your enemy when it comes to getting your selling message across to your foreign audience.

Instead, make sure you invest wisely in a good, human-made translation. It will allow you to turn culture and language differences into a competitive edge that will boost your international opportunity. - Tip submitted by pierre

StartupNation’s View: Thanks, pierre. As long as the expense is not extreme to make a site transferable to a new language, it sounds like a very smart suggestion. You’re based in Europe so this is a no-brainer practice for entrepreneurs based on your multi-lingual continent. If you’re U.S. based and you’ll want to go across an ocean for more customers, take note of pierre’s advice.

Add Wholesale

We suggest this strategy if you’re a high-volume buyer of products and currently sell only trough retail channels. The basic principle behind this is to leverage your high-volume pricing – the advantageously low pricing your vendors give you – to add a slight markup and then resell that product to other retailers. This puts you in the wholesale game.

We’ve seen this in particular with eBay merchants called “Power Sellers” who often buy large lots of items, sell some direct to customers, but resell a portion of the goods to other retailers who have their own retail ambitions. The only way this works, of course, is if you have access to the product at preferred pricing that your wholesale customers can’t get on their own.

The other way adding wholesale as a channel can help you grow is by moving inventory that’s just sitting around. Deeply discounting products that just won’t move out the door is reasonable in order to get money out of stagnant inventory and back into new inventory that you believe will be more profitable. Wholesale - or in this case, “fire-sale” - pricing can attract other businesses to swoop in on deal-hunting missions, and take the dead weight off your books.