Take your online shop abroad

An online shop abroad gives you the opportunity to sell to far more customers. But you need to think about which country to start with and adapt the shop to the people who will be buying from you. It is not enough to take the Danish shop and assume the rest of the world shops in the same way.

The video is from April 2009 and introduces the Internationalisation chapter in E-pusher. The assessments of the countries and payment examples are my observations from that time.

Choose the first country for your online shop abroad

Many Danes start by looking at Sweden and Norway. In the video, my view is that Sweden is the hardest place to start. I find Swedes difficult to approach, and I even say they do not like Danes. That is a strong assessment on my part.

What I particularly want you to consider is that Swedes think differently, and we Danes do not always notice it. I am talking about a cultural barrier rather than just a language barrier. My advice in the video is therefore to avoid Sweden as your first step if you can.

By contrast, I highlight the Netherlands and Norway as good countries to start in. My experience at that time is that they like Danes and are easier to approach. You need to think carefully about how you choose your market.

Read the chapter and learn from our experiences

I cannot stand here in this short video and tell you exactly how the entire internationalisation process should work. That is why I refer you to the chapter in E-pusher and suggest studying how we approached it ourselves at Spamfighter.

Basically, selling goods in another country is not so different from what you do in Denmark. But there are differences you need to understand. Among other things, I mention customs rules and cultural differences. These are things you need to learn about.

The entire purchase needs to work in the customer’s language

Think about the opportunities if you get going in Germany. In the video, I use the country’s roughly 80 million people to illustrate how large a market lies outside Denmark. That is the potential of taking your shop beyond the Danish border.

But remember one thing: If you are going to sell to Germans, your texts need to be in German. Your help pages need to be in German, and your payment pages need to be in German too. Customers need to be able to complete the purchase.

You also need to get the payment options right. In the video, I emphasise that you need to accept international cards and understand local payment habits. I point out that you cannot simply expect Visa and Mastercard to be enough in Germany. The Netherlands also has its own payment options.

The point is that you need to know the market you are entering and make the practical things work. I have described some of those things in the chapter.

A larger market still requires the right shop

There are billions of people out there who could be customers for your products. That is the opportunity that gets me excited about going abroad.

You still need the right products at the right prices. They need to be presented in the right way and marketed in the right way. If you get that right, I believe you can achieve revenue you never imagined before.

So think the opportunities through, read the chapter and get ready to sell on your customers’ terms. Have fun taking on the world.