POINT OF VIEWHow to rank your next three markets without a £50k study
Most UK SMEs choose their next market by accident. A distributor emails from Germany, a trade show goes well in Dubai, or the founder knows someone in New York. Sometimes it works. Often it means spending a year and a six-figure budget in a market that was never the best option.
The alternative isn’t a £50,000 consultancy study. For most brands under £20 million turnover, a two-week scoring exercise with data you can get for free will give you a ranked shortlist you can defend to your board. Here’s how we run it.
Start with the demand you already have
Before looking at any market report, look at your own data. Customers who find you without being asked are the strongest signal there is. Pull the last 12 months of:
- Orders and revenue by shipping country, from Shopify, WooCommerce or your order system
- Website sessions by country in Google Analytics, and the conversion rate for each
- Marketplace sales by country, if you sell on Amazon or eBay
- Inbound enquiries from overseas distributors, retailers or trade buyers
- Where your social followers and email subscribers are based
You’ll usually find two or three countries already buying from you with no effort on your part. They go straight onto the shortlist. Add three or four more that make strategic sense, such as markets your competitors have entered, and you have six to eight to score.
Score the shortlist on five factors
Score each market from 1 (poor) to 5 (strong) on five factors, then weight them. The weights below are where we’d start for a consumer brand. A B2B business might weight ease of doing business higher and reach cost lower.
| Factor | Weight | What you’re asking | Where to find it free |
| Demand | 30% | Are people already looking for what you sell? | Your own sales data, Google Trends and Keyword Planner by country, Amazon bestseller lists |
| Margin after landed cost | 25% | After duty, freight, fulfilment and local tax, does each sale still pay? | Carrier and fulfilment quotes, the destination’s customs tariff, your own costings |
| Competition | 15% | How crowded is your category, and how good are the locals? | Marketplace search results, Similarweb’s free tier, Meta Ad Library |
| Ease of doing business | 15% | Language, payments, returns culture, legal set-up | Your own team’s view, GOV.UK export guidance for each country |
| Cost to reach customers | 15% | What will paid social and search cost per click or sale? | Meta Ads Manager audience estimates, Google Keyword Planner bid ranges |
Two things matter more than precision. Score every market the same way, and write a one-line reason beside each score. In six months, the reasons will tell you whether you were wrong about the market or wrong about the method.
A worked example
Here’s how it might look for a UK skincare brand with £4 million turnover, already selling a little overseas through its own website. The scores are illustrative, but the pattern is one we see often.
| Market | Demand (30%) | Margin (25%) | Competition (15%) | Ease (15%) | Reach cost (15%) | Weighted score |
| Australia | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3.85 |
| Ireland | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3.7 |
| United States | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3.3 |
| Netherlands | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3.25 |
| Germany | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3.10 |
| France | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2.8 |
Each weighted score is the sum of score × weight. For Australia: (4 × 0.30) + (4 × 0.25) + (4 × 0.15) + (4 × 0.15) + (3 × 0.15) = 3.85.
The US has the strongest demand by a distance, and it still comes third. Its category is crowded, paid social is expensive, and tariffs plus fulfilment squeeze the margin (we covered this in our look at the US). That doesn’t rule it out. It means the US is a bigger, slower bet, and a brand this size might do better building revenue and confidence in Australia and Ireland first.
Germany scores well on margin but loses on ease: German-language customer service, a strong returns culture and demanding local competitors. That’s fixable, but it costs more than the founder usually expects.
Test before you commit
A scoring sheet tells you where to look. It doesn’t prove customers will buy. Before committing stock, staff or a local entity, run a cheap test in your top two or three markets.
- Build a simple landing page for each market, priced in local currency, with local delivery times and returns stated plainly.
- Spend £1,000 to £2,000 per market on paid social over four weeks, using the same creative everywhere so the market is the only variable.
- Compare click-through rate, add-to-cart rate and cost per sale side by side.
- Talk to five or six of the people who bought. Ask how they found you and what nearly stopped them.
The test often reorders the shortlist. A market that scored well on paper can show weak intent once real money is spent, and a marginal one can surprise you. Either result is worth far more than its cost.
Rank three, commit to one
The output you want is a ranked top three with a clear first choice, and a date to review it. Put most of your effort into market one. Keep markets two and three warm with light, low-cost activity until market one is profitable or clearly isn’t going to be.
The brands that struggle abroad rarely pick a terrible market. They pick three good ones at once and do each of them badly.
If you’d like help running this for your business, our Market Entry Strategy work builds the shortlist, scores it with you, and designs the test. Get in touch for a first conversation.
We also handle the day-to-day operational support to make sure everything runs smoothly and help you craft a winning value proposition. Whether you need us for a full project or just for a final check on your plans, we'll help you get ready for success.
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