It never ceases to amaze me how much money there is to be made from selling your products and services in other countries.

Got something that sells well in the UK?

Then sell it in Europe!

Think it’s hard to do? Think again.

Britain is leading the way in cross-border sales. Last year, Europeans outside the U.K. spent $11 billion on U.K. e-commerce sites and it’s forecast that that amount will rise to $15 billion this year—a 36% increase.

I personally have 2 businesses that sell between 20 and 40% of their total volume in the EU.

The advanced child academy sells 40% of our products into the EU in fact we ship for free throughout the EU.

Kidz 5 a day is a business we have very aggressively marketed in Europe with great results, even going as far as localizing the site for different high performing countries:

Norway for instance – http://barnas5omdagen.no/

Want a piece of the pie?

Here’s my top 3 tips to sell your products into Europe.

1. Get busy with your marketing systems.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to create a product but the money making skill in business is creating a marketing system that works time and time again to deliver sales.

This has to be your primary focus if you want to expand into the EU.

Once you have your system down pat then comes phase 2;

2. Localize.

“Did Germans chuckle with embarrassment when John F. Kennedy uttered the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner‘ at a Berlin Wall ceremony in 1963?

Perhaps, as the literal translation is “I am a jelly donut!”

Yes it’s easy to screw up when you don’t speaka da lingo, so get someone who does.

BUT

A finely honed sales message can be easily ruined by a careless transaltion so be sure to use a copywriter to translate for you, we use some of the best European copywriters to look after our clients translations so they’re as potent in Sweden as they are in Italy.

3. Local knowledge

Germans don’t use credit cards.

Italians like to pay cash straight into the bank

French like to pay cash on delivery

Norwegians prefer to order by phone

The same buying messages work throughout the world BUT the way people buy changes from country to country.

So be sure you do your research so you don’t try and sell your product in a way that the locals won’t buy.

There is a lot of money to be made selling your products in other countries as long as you do it right.

If you have a product you think would sell well in another country get in touch with us for an informal chat and we’ll give you an honest appraisal so you know the pitfalls and opportunities.

Neil