Your may very well love to travel to the area of the world where you want to export to, but really, How will you get accurate marketing research done to know enough about customers, distributors, partners and so forth to be successful in that market?

International Marketing definitely challenges businesses because of things like time differences, cultural differences, language, distances and plain old complexity offered by international commerce. The good news is that there are a number of readily available (but likely not well known) resources to help you export successfully and profitably.

Very detailed, in-depth research and analysis of the Commercial environment, conditions, opportunities, challenges, and so forth in almost any country are available from the US Commercial Service in their Country Commercial Guides.

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.

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.

Now that you are thinking about exporting, but before you spend a lot of time on that export plan or for that matter a lot of money, you need to find answers to several questions and your answers need to be consistent among themselves.

Well, okay, we should also include the more basic "Why should I export?", but since you already decided you want to consider exporting that should be taken care of (but I like to periodically revisit this question so we make sure everything is still aligning). Here they are:

What should I export (and CAN I export it)?

Where should I export?

How should I export?

Who will sell my export?

Read more: Thinking about Exporting? Here are some Basic Questions to answer Before you Start