Blog

Get tips on how to improve your online business on your email.

Tips are sent once every few weeks when we have new blogs (e-commerce tips, ideas, tricks,...) that we want to share with you. We don't spam.

Selling online from a small country

Posted in: Blog, E-Commerce, Marketing by Jure Kodzoman on November 19, 2010

Recently, I’ve read a book “New rules of marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott where author uses a case study of a small Lithuanian company that made worldwide success selling niche audio equipment.

Although the author makes a good point in taking ideas from companies like this, who have actually made it, the chapter was made so that it seemed like it’s simple(r) to start from a small country.

In business of selling things (especially if they are actual goods), you are almost doomed to failure unless you really have something exceptional and market it well.

Even in the EU, the market is in no way unified (even the shopping culture is different). Shipping costs inside EU are still expensive, not to mention countries outside EU which have customs. It’s almost impossible to break out of that.

Then, translations. For each new country you want to sell to, you have to translate again. That brings additional costs and makes seizing bigger markets much harder.

On the other hand US has the benefit of the same language, unified shipping across country and almost unified culture. That gives US a better starting point than probably anyone else currently. So, you might say “American dream is not dead“. It’s still more alive than a Lithuanian one anyway.

Yes, a story of Internet giving equal opportunities to everyone would be nice. But it simply isn’t true. The example of Lithuanian company is exceptional and they probably do a great job, but it’s in no way an easy route (and a rare example more than a trend).

Doing worldwide business will probably always be simpler from a bigger market. The niche is bigger and easier to seize. The starting momentum needed to get you going is much easier to achieve than in a small country.

Written by

Jure has been working in e-commerce for almost ten years. In that time he has done a lot of things. From hardcore coding, usability to SEO and marketing. He is a member of UPA and Interchange development group.

See all posts by

Comments

3 Comments
  1. David Meerman Scott

    Thanks for reading my book.

    I wasn’t trying to imply that it is easy to build a company from a small country. Doing great work is never easy.

    What I meant to say was that people who start companies in America (where I live) think only of the USA market. It is DIFFICULT for them to go global. When you start in a smaller country, the home market is not big enough so you think global right away.

    David

    Comment by David Meerman Scott on November 19, 2010 at 12:39 pm

  2. Luka Klemenc

    I can only partially agree with you David. Most companies in smaller countries tend to think about running their business in their local country or a very limited region. You are probably right that more companies from smaller countries think internationally but it is still just a small fraction of them and as you rightly pointed out it’s out of necessity.

    Comment by Luka Klemenc on November 19, 2010 at 12:45 pm

  3. Racke

    And their is a big difference between extending your business from a small country to another small country, say from Slovenia to Croatia, and a bigger country, like Germany. It can be a real challenge to compete in a bigger market than yours, even if you are the market leader in your home country. One example is Zweifel Chips, they are the market leader in Switzerland for potato chips, but they don’t sell in Germany and in fact no one knows about them in Germany.

    Comment by Racke on November 19, 2010 at 1:18 pm