2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. Germany – Best Sellers

10. 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

11. 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

12. USA – Best Sellers

13. 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

14. 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