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Posted: Tue 3rd Nov 2026
7 min read
Reviewed by Amanda Peters, content manager
Many businesses look overseas for growth but forget to challenge the assumptions that made them successful at home. Here are the common traps – and how SMEs can avoid them.
Most international expansion problems do not start overseas. They start at home. They start with assumptions.
Businesses assume customers abroad will buy for the same reasons, through the same channels and in response to the same messages that worked in their home market.
Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they only discover the difference after they have already spent the money.
If your product sells well in the UK, it is natural to ask:
"Where else could we sell what we already do successfully?"
It is a sensible question, and one that has helped many businesses achieve international growth.
Take TasteTech, a family-owned business from Bristol specialising in food ingredients and flavour technology. By helping food manufacturers solve specific technical problems, the company has built an international presence with customers around the world.
The opportunity is real. However, there is a hidden risk that catches many businesses long before they need to think about shipping, customs, tax or distribution. They assume that what made them successful at home will work just as well somewhere else.
After more than 20 years working across global, regional and local markets, I have seen this happen repeatedly. The biggest mistakes in international expansion are often not operational. They are assumptions that nobody has challenged.
Most international expansion plans are built on a set of beliefs that seem perfectly reasonable:
Customers will value the same benefits
The same pricing structure will remain competitive
The same sales messages will resonate
Customers will buy through similar channels
A translated website will be sufficient
Existing reputation and credibility will transfer naturally
None of these assumptions are necessarily wrong. The danger is treating them as facts simply because they worked in your home market.
Unfortunately, customers in a different country have not experienced the same market conditions, buying habits or competitive landscape that contributed to your success. What works in one market does not automatically work in another.
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is confusing a genuine long-term customer need with a temporary market opportunity.
A few years ago, I came across a small services company that expanded into Spain to support British homeowners who owned property there. The logic appeared sound.
Many British property owners struggled with language barriers, finding reliable local suppliers and navigating local processes. The company provided support in English and understood their customers' specific needs.
The business performed well. However, it had unknowingly built its success around a very specific customer segment and a very specific set of circumstances.
Following Brexit, some British homeowners reassessed their position, sold their properties and left the market. The customer base began shrinking.
Replacing those customers proved difficult. German, Dutch and Polish homeowners often already had access to local providers who spoke their language and understood their expectations.
The company did not have a customer problem. It had a market-dependency problem. Too much of its success depended on the continued presence of a very specific customer group.
The original opportunity had been real, but it was not as resilient as it first appeared.
Before entering a market, ask yourself:
"Are we solving a broad customer problem, or are we benefiting from a temporary situation affecting a specific group of customers? "
Businesses often have a clear view of why customers choose them.
Perhaps it is:
competitive pricing
product quality
technical expertise
flexibility
customer service
These strengths may genuinely differentiate a business in its home market. However, overseas customers may be solving a different problem.
While reviewing the website of a medium-sized European supplier targeting UK customers, I noticed an interesting example.
The company had clearly invested significant effort in explaining why customers should work with them. The website listed more than a dozen benefits, including quality, reliability, expertise and service.
One point caught my attention. The company highlighted its ability to help customers manage Brexit-related customs procedures, import requirements and administrative formalities.
For many UK buyers, that capability could remove a major headache and significantly reduce the perceived risk of working with an overseas supplier. Yet it appeared roughly seventh in a list of more than a dozen reasons to choose the company.
Nothing about the messaging was wrong. The issue was prioritisation.
From the company's perspective, helping customers navigate Brexit formalities was one capability among many. From the customer's perspective, it may have been the single most important reason to start a conversation.
The challenge is that businesses often communicate what they are most proud of rather than what customers care most about. Your strongest selling point is not always your favourite one. It is the one that removes the biggest concern in your customer’s mind.
Before entering a new market, ask yourself:
"Are we promoting the benefits we value most, or the benefits customers value most? "
Even when businesses understand the customer problem, assumptions can still influence how they reach those customers. For many SMEs, international e-commerce appears to offer a straightforward route into new markets.
The thinking often goes:
"We already sell successfully on Amazon in the UK. Amazon operates in other countries too, so we can simply expand there."
At first glance, the logic seems sound. The business is building on an existing capability. The team already understands the platform, the processes are familiar, and the investment required appears relatively low.
However, there is a hidden assumption. The business is assuming that because Amazon is a familiar global brand and an important part of how customers buy in the UK, it must play the same role everywhere else.
Many UK consumers will instinctively say: "I will just buy it on Amazon."
When a business hears that every day, it is easy to assume the same customer behaviour exists in every market where Amazon operates. The problem is that familiarity can easily be mistaken for customer insight.
Most UK businesses have heard of Amazon for years, sell through it themselves and see their customers using it regularly. It feels like the obvious place to start.
By contrast, many business owners may never have heard of marketplaces such as Allegro in Poland or bol.com in the Netherlands and Belgium, which dominate e-tail in those countries. That is, unless they have done some research into these marketing
That lack of familiarity can lead to a dangerous assumption. Because Amazon is the platform they recognise, they assume it must also be the platform that local customers prefer.
However, customers make decisions based on what is familiar to them, not what is familiar to you.
Without proper research, it is easy to choose a route to market based on your own experience rather than actual customer behaviour in the target country. The assumption is not based on customer behaviour. It is based on the business owner's own experience.
The issue is not whether Amazon operates in the market. The issue is whether it is where customers naturally begin their search for products like yours.
The mistake is not choosing Amazon. The mistake is choosing a route to market because it feels familiar rather than because it reflects how customers actually buy.
Before entering a new market, ask:
Where do customers start their search?
Which marketplaces or retailers do they trust?
How do they compare suppliers?
Which channels influence their purchasing decisions?
The most effective route to market is not necessarily the one that is easiest for you to implement. It is the one that feels most natural to the customer.
One of the most common assumptions in international expansion sounds like this: "Once we have translated the website, we are ready."
Unfortunately, customers do not judge localisation that way. I recently reviewed another company's UK website following its entry into the British market. The English was perfectly understandable. The products were clearly presented. Everything looked professional.
However, the contact details told a different story.
The ordering email address remained in the company's home-market language, and the only phone number was also overseas. For a UK buyer seeing the company for the first time, those details create uncertainty.
Will communication be straightforward?
Will support be easy to access?
Does this company really understand this market?
None of these concerns relate to the product itself. They were about trust. Customers do not simply assess what a business says. They assess the signals surrounding it. A translated website may communicate information. Localisation builds confidence.
There are several indicators that an international expansion strategy may be based more on assumptions than genuine market insight:
You are using your UK website and sales materials with minimal changes
Visitors from your target country are reaching your website but are not enquiring or buying
International enquiries rarely progress into sales
Local partners regularly suggest changes to your messaging
You have not spoken directly with potential customers in the market
Your team believes the strategy will work, but nobody outside the business has tested it
One of the most misleading metrics is website traffic. Visitors from a target country can feel like proof that demand exists. But traffic simply tells you that people arrived. It does not tell you why they left. Sometimes the problem is not a lack of demand. Sometimes customers are interested but do not yet have enough reasons to trust you.
Website analytics can tell you what happened. They rarely tell you why. That requires customer insight.
The good news is that validating assumptions does not require a large research budget. In many cases, the most valuable insights come from simple conversations and doing a bit of homework.
List everything you are taking for granted.
For example:
Customers will value the same benefits
They will pay similar prices
They will buy through similar channels
A translated website will be sufficient
Existing reputation will transfer
Then ask: How do we know this?
If the answer is based primarily on experience in your home market, it is worth testing.
Many businesses begin with promotion. A better starting point is curiosity.
Ask potential customers:
How do you currently solve this problem?
What matters most when choosing a supplier?
What concerns would you have about working with an overseas company?
Which alternatives would you consider?
If you already have enquiries or customers in the market, ask why they chose you — and why others did not
The objective is not immediate sales. The objective is understanding.
You do not need to become an expert overnight.
Useful sources of insight include:
Chambers of Commerce
trade associations
embassies and trade representatives
local distributors
existing customers
specialist consultants and freelancers
LinkedIn (and other social media) groups specialising in operating in this market
A single conversation with someone who understands the market can save months of expensive trial and error.
Rather than launching everything at once, test:
one product
one customer segment
one region
one partner
one channel
Treat expansion as a process of learning before committing significant resources to growth. A small experiment that validates your assumptions is often more valuable than a large investment based on guesswork.
Ask somebody in the target market to review your:
website
messaging
product descriptions
customer journey
Then ask a simple question:
"Does this feel like a company that understands your market?"
The answer will often reveal assumptions that you did not realise you were making.
Expanding internationally can be one of the most effective ways for an SME to grow.
The businesses that succeed are not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets, the most market reports or the most ambitious growth plans. More often, they are the ones willing to challenge their assumptions before committing significant time and money.
Before asking, " How do we sell in this market?" Ask: "Why would customers in this market choose us?"
The answer may be very different from the one that made you successful at home. Before investing heavily in a new market, challenge the assumptions behind your strategy. Because international expansion problems rarely start overseas.
More often, they start at home.
