Brands face many questions when looking to expand from where they are now. Perhaps they are a U.S.-based brand selling only on ecommerce marketplaces and want to create an effective D2C strategy to gather more specific data about their customers. They may be a U.K.-based brand looking to expand to Amazon in the U.S. Any way you slice it, expanding to new marketplaces and regions brings a whole host of concerns and checklist items with it. Creating a successful international roadmap for growth is not something one person can easily tackle on their own.

What it takes to go international

Many brands have an “ecommerce person,” or sometimes a small 2-3 person team. Imagine that our “ecommerce person” is suddenly tasked with getting his brand’s projects selling on Tmall in China, because it’s been identified by the brand as a great opportunity for growth. The ecommerce person suddenly has many questions to answer, such as:

1. Do we have any distributors, authorized or unauthorized, selling in China already?
2. Is our product suitable for the market? This includes concerns such as voltage, certifications, dosage, pipe sizings, etc.
3. Do our products require chinese labels?
4. What duties and taxes will be levied on our products?

These are questions that most often are not answered by a simple google search. Tmall has 180,000 brands, of which 20,000 are international. How do you get yourself above the competition? Creating effective international ecommerce and digital marketing strategies can have incredible returns for a brand, but they require expertise that is gained through years of wading through international commerce.

How Pattern’s ecommerce consultants help

Enter Pattern’s incredible ecommerce consultants. They can create a detailed roadmap for growth tailored to your brand to help you know which markets to prioritize and how to best service those markets. Pattern has helped brands create successful D2C strategies as well as expand to a number of marketplaces, including Amazon US, Amazon EU, Amazon CA, Amazon MX, MercadoLibre, Tmall, Walmart.com, and eBay (U.S. and international).

Pattern currently sells in more than half of the top 10 markets and can provide consulting services for all of them.

In addition to creating an ecommerce strategy and a roadmap for growth, our consultants have spearheaded market research for some of the world’s most innovative brands and retailers like Google, Adidas, Canon, New Look, and Converse.

Conclusion

Going back to our “ecommerce person,” Pattern’s ecommerce consultants would be able to provide them a comprehensive roadmap for growth for their brand. Perhaps China would be a good opportunity for his brand, but it will require over $1 million in advertising spend in the first year to even have the brand name recognized on Tmall and for products to make it to the first page of key search terms. They would receive a report with recommendations for the markets they should prioritize for their brand, and guidance for how to best service those markets.

Wondering how to expand your brand’s reach to new countries? Contact Pattern now to find out how you can work with our ecommerce consultants.