Your fashion brand might be starting to do quite well on a local level. There’s a good customer base, and people seem interested in the clothing that you are producing. Now, you want to expand your business to an international level of success. You’ve seen other companies do this, and you want a piece of the action that they have claimed. What are the steps to take when this is your goal? The first thing that you will have to think about is a boost in marketing.
Step 1: Marketing Increase
When you expand internationally, you are looking for a higher level of demand than before. To get that, you need to increase marketing. How you do this is your choice. But, we recommend that you start by expanding the reach of your SEO. If you have a website online, you should already have a form of SEO active on your site. This is how you attract local customers to your web page. But, you’re now going to need a global SEO service. It’s best to hire a company to set this up for you. Obviously on a global level you will face bigger internet competition. You need to be prepared.
You may also want to start teasing your expansion across social media. Don’t forget you do need to make sure that there is demand there for your product before you consider this type of expansion. But, we think once you assess the market there almost always will be.
Step 2: Money, Money, Money
Of course, you need extra funds if you want to expand. But where do you get them from? Ideally, you don’t want there to be a huge amount of risk here. What happens if things go wrong, and you lose the money that you borrow? That’s why you should borrow a business loan from the SBA. The interest rate is a lot lower compared to most other lenders so you won’t be in a tight bind to pay it back right away. As well as this, you can borrow as much as five million, so the possibilities are endless.
Although, if you want to cut out the risk completely, you can try to attract investors to your expansion plans. If your business is commercially viable and if it’s in fashion we suspect it is, you should be able to grab their attention. We suggest that you attend a fashion show and introduce your brand to the new region in style.
Step 3: Forming Partnerships
If is possible to run your expanded business yourself. But it’s easier and cheaper if you set up partnerships with companies that are already established in the new regions. By doing this, you’ll save on setup costs, and you won’t need to borrow as much money. You will also be letting some of the risk falls on another business owner’s shoulders. We don’t have to tell you why this is an advantage. It usually means that another shop has agreed to sell your product, and you get the profit from the sales. The process is quite similar to outsourcing.
We hope you find this advice useful and wish you luck on the international market.
