Market selection
Sell where you can actually win.
Two questions, answered before you spend.
Picking a market on gut feel is how good products die overseas. A distributor turns you down and nobody tells you it was the duty rate, or the certification you do not hold, or a competitor already sitting under your price. We work out which markets are open to you, and rank them.
How the answer gets decided
All three, or it is not a market. We say so when the answer is none of them.
Why the shortlist matters
Nobody tells you the real reason.
“Thanks for sending this over. We are not taking on new lines this year, but do keep us in mind for the future.”
Four weeks after your sample shipped
What was actually going on
The certification your category needs takes seven months, and you had not started it
A local competitor already sits under your landed price, and holds it
Your minimum order is three times what a first-year distributor will carry
The category does not move through distributors in that country at all
None of that is in the reply. All of it was findable before you shipped the sample.
The shape of the answer
A ranking you can argue with.
Every market gets the same three tests, and every verdict comes with the sentence behind it. You are not handed a number and asked to trust it. You are handed the reasoning, so your sales director can tell us where we are wrong.
| Candidate market | Demand | Price | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| GermanyDeep category spend, but certification is slow and the incumbents are cheap | Clear | Check | Clear |
| PolandThinner volume, no incumbent holding the mid price, distributors take calls | Check | Clear | Clear |
| United StatesThe volume is real, the landed cost is not, and the channel wants stock held locally | Clear | Blocked | Check |
Scroll across for every test
Illustrative. Your markets, tests and verdicts come out of the work.
What you get
A shortlist you can take to your board.
Not a hundred-page report. A ranked list of markets, the reasoning behind each rank, and a clear statement of what we are unsure about. Short enough that your team will actually read it, and specific enough that they can push back on it.
The shortlist
In the documentDemand and who is already buying
Competition and the price they hold
Where your product sits on that price ladder
Duty, certification, and what they cost
How the category actually reaches the buyer in that country
The reasoning
In the documentWhat we looked at, and what we deliberately ignored
The assumption behind each ranking, stated plainly
What would have to be true for the second choice to beat the first
Where the data is thin and we are estimating
What to check again in six months
How it runs
Wide first, then cut hard.
The value is not in the list of markets. It is in the ones we take off the list, and in being able to say exactly why each one went.
The first call
You tell us what you make, where you have sold so far, and what a first order looks like. We tell you whether this is a week of work or a month, and quote it firm before anything starts.
The long list
Every market where the category is bought at a volume worth your time. Wide on purpose, because the market you had not considered is usually the one worth the argument.
The three tests
Demand, price, access, applied to each candidate. Most fall out here, and we write down why rather than quietly dropping them.
The pressure test
We call people who sell in the markets that survived. Distributors, buyers, category managers. Desk research tells you what the market was; they tell you what it is now.
The handover
A session with your team where we present the ranking and you attack it. If an assumption does not survive that room, it should not survive the report either.
Who does the work
Cyril runs this himself, with senior people in China and Europe who sell in these markets. You are not paying for a junior analyst and a template.
Scope depends on your product and the markets in play. We agree it on the first call and quote it firm before any work starts.
The first move
Which market first?
Tell us what you make and where you have sold so far. We will tell you on the first call whether this is a week of work or a month, and quote it firm.
We answer in your time zone.