Company Background• Family owned SME business selling childrens crafts, party

bag fillers and toys• No bricks and mortar• Revenues £18m, only 80 staff, very limited resources• Two ecommerce brands: “Baker Ross” & “Yellow Moon”• 450,000 orders in 2012• Sell to a mix of primary schools, consumers and groups• Strong sales from themed craft ranges ie Halloween,

Christmas, Easter etc

Marketing• Company comes from mail order

background but 90%+ of orders now online• Extensive use of pay per click advertising• Catalogues a good driver of traffic to our

ecommerce sites but spend much reduced over time

• Social media - Use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and blogs to promote our product / brand

Overseas Expansion• A trickle of orders from ex pat Brits but zero intelligence on

what products would work in what markets• Just over a year’s experience of selling our products on 2 UK

online marketplaces– 1st 12 months on these marketplaces generated 60,000 orders

• Decided to test new countries using online marketplaces before incurring large costs of creating our own ecommerce sites– A “putting our toe in the water” approach

• Made a decision to go international in June and set target of being live in 3 countries by September.

Overseas Challenges• Typical product price point of £2.99 and low AOV meant

consumers very sensitive to shipping rates– Felt our international shipping rates had to be competitive with

local market domestic rates• This meant 3.99 euros / $4.99 range

– Offering free P&P uneconomic as would absorb all profit on low value orders

• Unique own brand products meant all titles, copy & search terms needed to be translated from scratch (with no piggy backing)

• Product packaging needed foreign language titles etc added to them

Choosing Product for Overseas Markets

• Focus on all year round products “evergreens” rather than seasonal ranges

• Own brand “Baker Ross” products not available elsewhere– Our own designed product

• Good sellers on UK online marketplaces• Picked items which weighed 250g or less

– Low cost to ship– Many orders would fit through a letterbox

• This gave us 300 products to start with

1st Country – Germany• Why? Largest economy in Europe, shipping

distance short, gut feel• How did we do it?

– Had 250 products (titles, copy, search terms) translated plus all other set up done for 1,900 euros

– Went live beginning of August– Initial daily sales promising and quickly

approached 50 orders per day in holiday season – Based on experience of seasonality with UK

marketplaces expect daily orders of 200 to 300 by November

1st Country – Germany• What have we learned?

– Germans like things delivered on time– Owl themed products are 5 of the top 6

sellers – Choosing the right local language search

terms key• What are we doing?

– Changed parcel delivery company– Getting 200 Halloween & Christmas

products translated

Germany – Best Sellers

2nd Country – USA• Why? Huge market, no language issues, users of our

YouTube channel asked why didn’t we ship to the USA– Launched YouTube channel in 2012 to promote product

and craft ideas• Inspired by other etailers such as Lovehoney & Kiddicare

– Never expected that 70% of the views would be in the USA

• How did we do it?– Used existing copy from UK marketplaces. No costs

incurred– Went live this month– Initial daily sales lower than Germany

2nd Country – USA• What have we learned?

– Religious themed products sell better than in the UK

– Going to be a tougher market to crack• What are we doing?

– Promote product availability in USA on youtube channel

– Create a US product blogging network

USA – Best Sellers

3rd Country – France• Why? Large economy, shipping distance

short, gut feel• How did we do it?

– Had 450 products (titles, copy, search terms) translated plus all other set up done for 3,000 euros

– Going live this week• What have we learned?

– Should have a good idea within the first month

What next?• Use overseas marketplace experiences to decide what

countries to prioritise for local language / domain ecommerce sites– We are learning a lot for very little expenditure– Keep moving quickly

• Use our UK ecommerce sites to generate overseas sales– Offer multi currency pricing– PPC campaigns on

• www.google.com• www.google.com.au• www.google.ie

• Introduce / expand product ranges to take account of international differences