A Good friend who travels a lot sees a product similar to yours selling for double the price in Country X and excitedly tells you that you should sell your product there – you could make a killing there by selling at double the price! But should you?

The reasons for considering exports as a way to grow your business are well documented elsewhere (Export.gov, National Export Initiative) and include the fact that 95% of consumers live OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES and therefore can only be reached by exporting.

But realistically you need to know a bit more about the market for your product in Country X before you decide to jump into that market. Most people are surprised to learn that the product sells for that seemingly high price because it MUST in order to cover the additional costs of shipping, duties, tariffs, taxes, and so forth and not because the other company selling the product is greedy and making a lot of profit.

So in this case the reason to export to Country X might be because you can reach another portion of that 95% and significantly increase Revenues (hopefully at an acceptable profit) and not because it seems like you could make a much higher profit on each product unit sold.

We will discuss this further in other articles, but do consider that the decision to export or not while very important to your business, can be complex as there are even more things besides price that you need to consider before making your decision.