Sell Your Wares to the World

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Having a website rather than a bricks-and-mortar shop means a company can sell their wares to the world. But taking payments for international sales may not be straightforward.

"One of the biggest realisations we had when looking to expand was that credit card penetration is generally much lower in most markets outside the UK and US," he [Nigel Whiteoak, co-founder of LoveCrafts] explains.

Payment difficulties contribute to about 15% of online shoppers abandoning their virtual shopping baskets before completing the purchase, research suggests. That and difficult-to-navigate, fiddly websites.

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Bite the Bullet and Go Global

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Dr. Jana Matthews says, "Exporting is a business risk – but then so is starting a company."

The problem is, all too often, fear. Behavioural economists tell us that the fear of loss is twice as strong as the joy of gain. It's no wonder that entrepreneurs fear expanding into a foreign country where people speak a different language, operate under a different set of rules, and where there's no certainty they'll get paid – even if they can find customers who want their products.

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