Somebody Reports to you that the prices for your type of product in Country X are Double what they are in the U.S. - Wow, does that mean you can Radically Increase your Profits? - Not necessarily, and probably not, but it may still be worth it!

Yes, I was one of those people reporting that overseas prices were Really high, so we should be able to export and make a lot more profit - but that is not necessarily the truth! When you add in shipping and handling, insurance, tariffs and duties and taxes, and so on, the sell price in that country will likely be as much as twice the U.S. price, but the anticipated "Profit" definitely starts getting eaten up by all of those extra costs and your profits on each sale is likely to be about the same if not slightly less than your domestic sale!

So why would anyone export if profits aren't going up that much? Remember that 95% of the world's potential customers live outside the US, so exporting does access potentially HUGE new markets and therefore huge revenue growth potential. There definitely can be incremental revenues when you start exporting, and if you manage the process, you can reduce some of those new costs and further improve profits. As your business grows, moving part of your supply chain into the target export country can result in even better profits, too.