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By Ekaterina Gorbacheva

Scaling your brand by going global with a local approach is the best thing you can do for your growth when international expansion seems like a real problem. Almost 60% of global shoppers already buy from retailers outside their home country. The opportunity is clear, and modern tools are all set, but many brands are still waiting. Let’s go through a global expansion checklist on opportunities and the most common mistakes to avoid. Most of what follows comes directly from our work at Udora, a gifting platform that connects customers with local sellers in 50+ countries.

First sales right after your launch in the new market aren’t equal to success. The core metric for any sustainable business is retention. It’s about freedom not to buy every single customer all over again. Unless your acquisition cost is minimal and your margins are 1000%, relying solely on acquisition will wear out your budget.

Take Wish. When on top, they felt confident enough to spend huge sums on acquisition. In 2021, roughly 89% of its total sales and marketing budget went purely toward acquiring new users. The point is, they didn’t succeed in making people come back and stay loyal to the brand. You can buy a market’s attention, but retention is a different skill.

It’s a common mistake when brands test new regions with welcome soft ad campaigns, see spikes in one-time curious buyers, but what really matters is that they can’t bring those people back. CRM marketing can actually beat this issue, offering users a comprehensive, multi-channel approach of care, along with useful reminders. If you don’t take this channel seriously, you are just likely to end up with a leaky bucket in a different currency.

Some brands win by staying almost identical everywhere. Coca-Cola, Apple, and Nike maintain a single core identity across every border. Your brand equity might be your superpower.

Others win by doing the opposite, reshaping themselves for each market. IKEA does a real job in this. For example, in 1986, the company had to exit the Japanese market, but then returned with offerings adapted to the needs of that market. In India, IKEA added more spoons than forks, extendable beds, and chicken and vegetarian meatballs instead of beef and pork. SHEIN tailors regional assortments to local climates and holidays while integrating directly with local buy-now-pay-later options. Amazon rebuilds its marketplace, payments, and logistics country by country.

Let’s start with the basics. Your customers should feel confident when checking out, so it’s crucial to offer diverse and familiar payment options. Stripe handles international card processing smoothly, but you still have to switch on the right regional rails, so do the research.

Europeans like BNPL or Klarna; Brazil runs on Pix and Boleto; Saudi Arabia needs Mada cards; and Spain favors Bizum. Add Apple Pay and Google Pay wherever you go. Strong anti-fraud systems and legacy strategies are another must for processing payments online. At Udora, turning on the correct local payment methods for each region did more for our conversion rates than almost any other single change.

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