Skip to main content

Research countries and choose destination markets:How to assess ease of entry into a new export market

View transcript for Episode 7 - Ease of entry into a new market recording
Markets can vary with respect to how easy it is for new sellers to enter them successfully. Barriers could be caused by legislation, cultural, technological or political factors. So it’s important to fully assess them before deciding where to export to. The best place to start is at home, exploring how your business is performing within the UK. And there are 4 elements to this.

1. Business profile

Define the profile of your business and how you position yourself against the competition. This covers everything from who your customers are, to how much trust they have in your brand.

2. Product positioning and pricing

Examine how you currently position your products or services against the competition in the UK. Ask yourself what makes them unique. Define their unique selling points (USPs) and how you’re measuring their performance.

How do you set your UK prices? You should be prepared to assess your export pricing, and revisit when necessary, against factors such as economic conditions, exchange rates, consumer preferences and payment terms.

What you’ll learn

  • what ease of entry into a new market means
  • how to rate your current UK performance and apply this knowledge to entry into new markets
  • how to create a framework to compare ease of entry in new markets

What does ease of entry mean?

Ease of entry is your ability to start selling in a new market and get a return on your investment, without having to overcome any major barriers to trade. For example, barriers caused by legislation, culture, technology or political factors.

Know your current business to plan for future success

Before you can assess the ease of entry into a new market, it’s a good idea to see how your business is performing in the UK.

There are 4 elements to this:

  1. Business profile

    Define the profile of your business and how you position yourself against the competition. This covers everything from who your customers are, to how much trust they have in your brand.

  2. Product positioning and pricing

    Examine how you currently position your products or services against the competition in the UK. Ask yourself what makes them unique. Define their unique selling points (USPs ) and how you’re measuring their performance.

    How do you set your UK prices? You should be ready to assess your export pricing against factors such as economic conditions, exchange rates, consumer preferences and payment terms. Revisit this when you need to.

    You can use the Boston Matrix and Ansoff Matrix to work out which of your products are best suited to new markets.

  3. Place

    Your reasons for choosing one new market over another need to be easy to explain and measurable. Unless you know how your business is performing in your UK markets you won’t be in a good position to do this.

    To help you prioritise new markets, you could start by looking at your competitors in the UK, to see which export markets they sell into.

  4. Promotion

    You need to check if your UK business model works in the new market. For example, if your main USPs were short lead times and good customer after-sales backup, how would these work in a new market in a different time zone?

    Likewise, you need to look at how your routes to market affect your models, and consider any extra costs involved.

Compare ease of entry in new markets

If you know your business and current markets inside out, you can start comparing the ease of entry into new markets.

We would recommend starting with PEST Analysis. This is a simple and popular tool which helps you compare the political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological (PEST) factors you need to consider when entering a new market.

For example, if you planned to sell gin to Japan, PEST analysis may reveal that culturally you'll need longer than usual to build trust in your brand before people buy.

“My advice is to choose a market you’re familiar with, that’s not too costly, and is easy to stop exporting to if it’s not going well. But it all goes back to knowing both your target market, and your own market in the UK. Information here is key. That’s really the secret.”

International trade adviser

Share this page

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • X

Accelerate your learning

Sign up to Great.gov.uk and you'll be able to:

  • track your learning progress and read case studies
  • join live events from the UK Export Academy
  • compare markets using live export data
Sign up to get started

Already signed up? Sign in

Thank you for submitting your rating

Thank you for helping us to improve this service


To help us improve our service, we'd like to know more about your booking experience today. It will only take a minute to complete.

Overall, how would you rate your experience with the Learn to export service today?

Did you experience any of the following issues?

Select all that apply.

Error: Select issues you experienced, or select ‘I did not experience any issues’

Or

How likely are you to use this service again?

Error: Select how likely you are to use this service again

Don't include any personal information, like your name or email address.

Your feedback must be 1200 characters or less

You can enter up to 1200 characters