Faire Report #13: To export or not to export? That is the question.

What’s on my brain this week?

A big congratulations to the Faire International team, who are celebrating 5 years since their expansion beyond North America.

We are beyond grateful they chose to come into Europe when they did because it genuinely changed our business — and our lives, really.

At Candid Founders, we mainly work with American brands because the market is enormous compared to most of the world. We have seen incredible success there. But this week I wanted to focus on the international opportunities available through Faire and share a few thoughts for anyone considering expansion overseas.

Nail the best market first

Nail America. If that's your home market, great — focus on that and do it exceptionally well.

The population is huge, the retail market is massive, and you can build an incredibly successful business without ever exporting a single product.

If you're based elsewhere, like we were when we started Bare Kind, then consider selling into America as soon as you're able. We've lived through building a product business from scratch in the UK and we've seen first-hand the scale of the US opportunity.

In fact, we're launching Bare Kind USA this year. Looking back, if we'd expanded sooner, we'd almost certainly have a much bigger business today.

Test the market with retailers

Launching direct-to-consumer in a completely new country can be incredibly difficult when nobody knows your brand.

Instead, test the market through wholesale first. You only need one retailer to start learning whether your product resonates, and then you can build from there.

Faire makes this process surprisingly easy. It also helps you iron out all the operational details such as duties, taxes, shipping and customs before making bigger investments.

Our recommendation is usually to ship with FedEx at first. It's fast, reliable, and easy to set up, even if it isn't the cheapest option. Save the local 3PL conversations until you've actually proven demand.

Testing an overseas market is much easier than most brands think. It's a two-way door. Just test it.

What's holding you back?

I'd genuinely love to know what's holding you back from selling internationally.

For us, the biggest barrier with Bare Kind wasn't complexity. It was headspace. We simply didn't have the capacity to focus on it.

Since launching Candid Founders and working with so many fantastic American brands, we've become convinced that the US had to happen for Bare Kind this year.

Stay tuned — we'll be sharing how that launch goes.

Final thought

International expansion feels daunting until you start. The reality is that testing a new market is often much easier than people imagine, especially with platforms like Faire removing many of the traditional barriers.

See you on the marketplace,

Andy