If you are considering to expand your business globally, there are some considerations that you will need to address before you invest large amounts of time and money. Find out what the most important ones are in the post below.
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5 Things You Need To Expand Your Business Globally
How you will get your products to international locations
First of all, you can sell your product abroad without shipping it abroad, so this is a major factor that you will need to consider. For some businesses, this means continuing to make their products in their current facilities and using international transport and logistics to get them where they need to go.
For others it can mean finding manufacturing facilities in the countries they are expanding into. However, the cost of both options must be weighed very carefully here before any decision is made.
How you will take payment for your products in foreign currencies
Another vital consideration when expanding your business overseas is how you will accept payment for your products.
After all, not every country has the same currency, so you will need to have a system in place that not only converts these currencies, but that also ensures the proper local regulations are adhered to when a customer buys something from your website.
The good news is that using a service that offers multi currency payment processing can help you do all this and more. Indeed, with multi-currency payment processing on your website, you can set prices in any currency while ensuring they are converted to your home currency as the transaction is made.
Whether your core team will need to be available in different time zones
If you plan on running your business from your current location you’ll also need to think about whether this means you will need more availability from your team.
This is because, different countries have different time zones, so if your business needs to talk to someone in another time zone to check the progress of something or book a delivery they may end up having to do it outside of their usual 9-5.
This most often impacts the core team of a business including managers, and the best way to address it is to run rotating shifts. This means that there is always someone there to answer the phone and make queries, but it's not the same person every time.
Whether there is a genuine need for your product in other countries
Global expansion is expensive. One of the worst possible outcomes is that you can put a great deal of time, effort, and money into this type of move, only to realise that there is no market for your products. That is why market research is so important in the stages before you go through with the expansion.
Such research should include whether there is a genuine need for your products, whether there are any products already on the market in that country that do the same as what yours is offering, as well as how your product, and brand fit in culturally and whether you will need to change anything to make it more attractive to your new market.
