No matter what kind of business you run or what kind of manager you are, it’s important to note that businesses aren’t always 100% secure in their current state. Usually, businesses grow or stagnate, and only fortunate businesses happy with their situation seem to rely on the exact same revenue figures and operational necessities each year. There will be good years and bad years, which couldn’t be emphasized more appropriately than 2020 and the early part of 2021, for obvious reasons.
For this reason, learning to grow your outfit or at least expand its functionality from time to time can be helpful. Accepting international orders, for instance, could be a great way to reach a global market, and with the international reach of the internet, appealing to those from abroad need not be as difficult as it once was. For instance, many businesses are happy to ship all around Europe as they are pretty much operating within the same economic zone.
But what if you hope to appeal to those from further afield? In this post, we’ll discuss that, and help you with some strategies for moving forward.
Market Regulations
Market regulations established in a given country or economic zone may be more stringent than those you currently operate in, or they may be looser. As well as complying with the laws of your current country, as an exporter you will need to comply with the legislation relating to the standards, certification requirements, regulations and codes in the country you are planning to sell to.
So, it’s worth knowing what these are. Thankfully, thorough advice as to what markers you need to hit is easy to find. For instance, if you’re trading in Europe, the economic zone applies to many countries and allows you to more seamlessly sell. Yet in the United Kingdom, post-Brexit realities mean you will need to curate your output a little more.
Customs Necessities
Customs can be notorious for taking a stringent eye towards products sold abroad. Compliance risks, penalties, payable duties, all of this can combine to cause unnecessary trouble for you, and may even result in your products being refused and returned.
This is why it’s essential to use services like a customs brokerage to help this process go smoothly. Using a firm with a worthwhile reputation and a habit for respecting the norms of customs processing can help you more easily reduce the chance of penalties, as well as helping you curate your trading platform before you may use of it. This can help you save money over time, and more easily make passing customs and delivering your goods more quickly a reality.
Shipping Calculations
On top of making sure that our international orders processing is convenient for us, it’s essential to make sure that our consumers are incentivized to book from us, a company abroad, compared to a similar substitute in their home country.
A great way to begin is to make this process much more convenient than it may be otherwise. To start with, having the utilities for calculating shipping costs immediately, and making sure you use carriers that provide the most value, can help you ensure that those thinking of buying for you can understand and accept the enhanced delivery cost and still feel incentivized to make the purchase.
Cost Conversions & Payment Processors
Pursuant to our previous point, it’s important to make sure that your international customers can actually pay for their goods with proper cost conversions between currencies. This also means using payment processors that are standard in those countries. For instance, PayPal is an international platform that can be used to convert currencies and even set up regular payments as necessary.
The simpler you make this process, the more sales you will achieve. You may even find that you develop something of an international audience for your goods. Additionally, using international platforms like Amazon can sometimes help you appeal to an audience that you may not otherwise do so. In some cases, taking a loss on expenditures like delivery costs can help you gain the benefit of appealing to a wider audience, which can sometimes be worth the price of admission.
What matters is considering every level of accepting international orders and what that means in the long run. Establish yourself in one market at a time, and familiarize yourself with the said market. This way, you can walk before you start running, and perhaps open yourself up to a wider market and increased means of competing.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily accept and deliver on international orders.
