The internet and e-commerce: your own site and an overseas marketplace

1. Why a business sells abroad is covered in 2.1.3a and the tariffs and trade blocs it meets are covered in 2.1.3b, so this guide takes both as read and deals only with how the business wins customers in that country.
2. A website is visible in every country from the day it goes live, so the business can take orders from abroad without renting a unit, hiring staff or holding stock in that country.
3. Selling through its own site, the business keeps the whole selling price, controls how the brand looks and holds the customer's email address for future offers.
   1. It has to earn the visitors itself, paying for search advertising or influencers, because nobody types in the address of a shop they have never heard of.
4. Selling through an overseas marketplace such as Amazon, eBay or Etsy puts the product in front of buyers who are already searching there, and the site handles payment in their currency.
   1. The marketplace takes a commission on every sale and shows rival products on the same page, so the firm trades margin and control for ready-made traffic.
5. Either route sells more once the pages are translated and prices are shown in the local currency with a payment method people there already use, since a shopper asked to pay in pounds through an unfamiliar system usually abandons the order.
6. The difficulty moves to what happens after the order, since posting a parcel to another country costs more than a UK delivery and takes longer, so either the price rises or the profit on each sale is squeezed.
   1. Returns and customer service cost more too, because return postage from abroad is dear and somebody has to answer emails in another language and another time zone.

Changing the marketing mix: the product and the price

1. Each of the four elements, taught in full in 2.2, is checked against the overseas market before the business starts trading there.
   1. Product: recipes, sizes and styles are changed to suit local tastes, while packaging has to carry the local language and meet local safety and labelling rules, and an electrical product needs the right plug.
   2. Changing the product itself is the dearest option, because a new recipe or a different plug means a separate production run, so a smaller firm often ships the UK version and changes only the label.
   3. Price: the price has to sit against local incomes and what local rivals already charge, so a figure that looks ordinary in the UK can be out of reach elsewhere.
   4. The same price also has to cover the delivery, translation and adaptation the overseas sale needs, so the firm is squeezed between higher costs and a market that will pay less.

Changing the marketing mix: promotion and place

1. Promotion: adverts have to work in the local language and culture, because a slogan that is funny in English can mean nothing, or something rude, once it is translated.
   1. The platforms differ as well, so the campaign runs on whichever apps and search engines people in that country actually use, and a local influencer who speaks the language does what a translated advert cannot.
2. Place: the goods still have to reach the buyer, which usually means signing a local distributor, getting shelf space in a local retailer or paying a delivery network in that country.
   1. Place also covers what happens when an order goes wrong, so a local returns address and delivery in days rather than weeks is often what persuades a first-time buyer abroad to risk the order at all.
3. Every change costs money, because a separate recipe, label and advertising campaign has to be paid for in each country, so a smaller firm often adapts the packaging and the promotion and leaves the product itself alone.