The 2020 and 2021 pandemic has seen businesses go one of two ways – struggling or thriving. The spread of coronavirus has led to significantly reduced demand in some areas, while demand has peaked in others. Whichever side of this you’ve been experiencing, you may be considering expanding your business or switching your business to a global market. Why? Well, if you’re struggling to make sales, doing this can help to increase your reach and make your products available to a much wider audience. If your business has been experiencing a lot of sales and general success, expanding to a wider audience could be a great way of further increasing sales and profit, slowly becoming a globally recognised brand. Of course, there are going to be many challenges that you will face when expanding to an international market. But here are a few suggestions that can help you make a success of this venture!
Focus on Ecommerce
Ecommerce has been on the rise for a while now. Already, there were perks. Lower running costs, lower prices for your customers and more sales. But this has increased even more due to the pandemic, where people want to spend less time out of their houses and more time indoors having goods delivered directly to them. This means that many of us already have great quality websites set up for our domestic audiences. This makes selling to a worldwide audience even simpler. Why? You simply have to adapt your site to an international audience (perhaps offering options to select the customers’ country, with different languages available and prices displayed in different currencies). You then need to add the option of international shipping. This then means that anyone can buy with you. Just make sure to include information regarding international shipping times, whether customs charges are included and more.
Understand Taxation
When you sell overseas, you may experience changes in taxation. Taxes differ in one country to another or you may find that it costs more to sell to an international audience in regards to taxes. This is an extremely complex subject area and can differ depending on what you’re selling and where you’re selling. So, make sure to contact a foreign corporation tax return service for further advice on your business’ individual circumstances and commitments.
Consider Customer Service
If you’re going to sell to an international audience, you need to be able to communicate with international customers. All may not speak the same language as you, but may still have questions and queries regarding your products and other aspects of the buying process. Use professional translators to translate and reply to messages that you may not be able to understand yourself.
As you can see, selling to an international audience is a big step. But at the same time, there are plenty of things you can do to make a great success of it! Hopefully, some of the advice offered above can help!
