Unfortunately, few American DTC companies have taken advantage of the fertile ground the UK offers for transatlantic business. Most only think of expanding beyond North America at a much later stage of their development. There's no good reason you should delay like them.
Our services go way beyond the traditional 3PL pick-and-pack service, although if that's what you're after we can certainly help.
Assuming you're not yet selling into the UK on a large scale, a well-crafted strategy is probably the thing you're most lacking. When first building your brand, you were probably able to develop a strategy on-the-go based on the advice of others around you, expert written resources, and your existing basic knowledge of topics like taxation, law and culture in your home country.
Most of this is missing when it comes to expanding abroad. Fewer brand owners you know have done it, there's far less easily accessible advice, and your baseline knowledge of matters such as taxation and regulations in the UK is probably limited. This lack of familiarity tends to put DTC brands off entirely.
We can be your strategic partner in the UK. We'll help you craft a strategy unique to your brand, understanding the regulatory environment, condcting market research, getting localization right, covering taxation considerations and helping you get answers to the big questions such as whether you should you set up a UK company or trade through your US entity.
The need to export your products and get them safely into the UK is obviously an essential element to your expansion. You may initially be able to keep trading from your North American base, and we can advise on the best way to get goods to your UK customers without them being hit with taxes and charges at the border.
Eventually you'll almost certainly want to export your product to the UK in bulk, so that they're closer to your end customers and they can benefit from both cheaper and faster shipping at the point of order. You may be able to send a portion of your production straight from your manufacturers to a UK base, which makes the most sense if you're already manufacturing abroad. But if you make your product in the US or prefer to receive goods from your manufacturers before distributing smaller shipments of multiple SKUs, then exporting directly across the Atlantic may be your only option.
Your current marketing stack has no doubt served you well, and your lessons learnt so far will certainly help in the UK but won't be sufficient by themselves. Brits generally use the same social media and search tools as Americans - Facebook, Instagram, Google and so on - and we can help you adapt your existing campaigns to a UK audience. If you rely on any traditional media or more obscure publications we'll help you track down the UK equivalents.
Building a local presence can significantly enhance credibility and consumer trust. This might involve establishing partnerships with local influencers, engaging in local social issues, or customizing products to meet local tastes and needs. Perhaps most importantly, we can help you understand cultural nuances and ensure that product offerings and marketing messages resonate with a UK audience.
Your customers nowadays take a commitment to environmental sustainability as a given, rather than a nice-to-have. And they want to know that being green isn't just window dressing, but built in to your product - and your partnerships. There's a lot that fulfilment companies can do in this space, and as we work towards our ISO 14001 certification, we're minimising waste and emissions in several ways, for example:
Having run our own ecommerce companies and worked with manufacturers to develop more sustainable packaging, we're also able to help you develop in this area. If you'd like more information about what we're doing to minimise our environmental footprint and how we can help you do the same, we'd be delighted to talk further.
