The Good and the Bad of Exporting Goods to Different Countries

Felister Wamaitha
3 min readOct 18, 2021

The world is a big place, with many different cultures and people. With so much variety, it’s natural that there are some differences in what people want to buy. That is the reason for exporting goods — to bring products from one country into another that can’t be found at home.

The benefits of export are plentiful but also come with their own set of risks. In this blog post, we’re going to explore both sides of the coin, giving you an understanding of how exports work and what pitfalls you may experience along the way!

The Good That Come From Exporting Goods to Different Countries

1. Expand Your Market

By selling your product to people in other countries, you can expand the market available to you. This means that your goods will be able to reach places they otherwise couldn’t and people who may not have been interested before. As a result, you get increase in sales and improved profits!

2. Reduce Vulnerability

If economic conditions become unfavorable or natural disaster occurs in your local market, it can have a huge negative impact on your business. You’ll be unable to reach the people that you usually sell to and vice versa. If instead, you export goods, then these problems will be reduced or eliminated as you will not be solely depending on sales within the domestic market.

3. Extend the Product Life Cycle

As you’ll be selling to a wider variety of customers, the chances are that they will prefer certain aspects over others. By doing this, it can help extend your product life cycle (the time between when you introduce the product and when sales begin to drop off) by providing an upgrade path for existing users
or allowing follow-on products — like sequels in a movie series — to be created.

For example, Apple’s iPhone has evolved over the years from the first version of 2007 to today’s state- of-the-art models in 2020, with each one being more powerful than its predecessor.

By doing this, they’ve been able to keep customers interested and engaged while still making money on older versions!

The Bad of Exporting Goods to Different Countries

While there are many benefits, exporting does come with some risks that you’ll need to consider before making the decision.

1. Different Countries Have Different Regulations and Standards

Every country has different regulations and standards when it comes to exporting products. This means that you’ll need to do additional work for your product to be accepted by the customers.

Not only will your products need to pass through testing before they can be sold, but also you’ll need extensive documentation, which can be highly time-consuming and frustrating if your company doesn’t have the resources available or easy access to specialist help.

2. Extra Administration Cost

While you aren’t responsible for all of the administration, you will require more finances to develop new marketing strategies and assign more personnel to new locations to undertake the new administration and operational tasks.

Conclusion

If you want to start exporting goods but are worried about the new challenges it brings with it, then there are plenty of options available. Many businesses use third-party logistics providers such as Aramex to handle all of the work for them so that they can focus on what they do best — developing new products and providing excellent customer service!

Aramex Smart (a new service by Aramex) is a complete eCommerce fulfillment platform that provides payments, deliveries, and returns for eCommerce businesses shipping locally, internationally and (safely)
into emerging markets.

We’re also launching a Part-Pay product aimed at international E-tailers who export goods. Part-Pay is receiving a lot of interest from the commercial teams. They see it as a solid enabler for signing up more
E-tailers to Aramex Smart. Don’t be left behind; join us, and let’s connect to make your export business a success.

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