So You Want to Sell Internationally? Here’s How to Actually Do It

“I think we should start selling internationally.”

It sounds like a strategy.

It isn't.

Germany is a strategy. Selling 500 units of Product X to a specific German customer at a price that still makes you money is a strategy.

For an SME, that distinction matters.

The opportunity is unquestionably there. Global trade in goods and commercial services reached $34.89 trillion in 2025, up 8% in a single year, according to the World Trade Organization.

But comparatively few SMEs capture much of it.

The European Commission says the EU has around 24 million SMEs, representing 99% of businesses and two-thirds of private-sector employment. Yet only around 600,000 EU SMEs export goods outside the EU. (European Commission).

So what's stopping everyone else?

Often, it isn't the ability to make something another country wants.

It's working out how to sell it, price it, ship it, document it and get paid for it.

Here's how to start.

1. Forget “international”. Pick one market.

The first mistake is saying:

“We want to expand internationally.”

Where?

Britain? Germany? UAE? United States? Singapore?

Different customers. Different regulations. Different taxes. Different logistics. Different competitors.

Start with one product, one market and one clearly defined customer profile.

There's good evidence for taking the narrow approach. European Commission data from its SME research found that 23% of EU SMEs sold into other EU countries, while only 9% exported to European countries outside the EU and just 4% to North America. (European Commission Annual Single Market Report).

International expansion gets progressively harder as distance, regulation and market differences increase.

So don't start with a map.

Start with a customer.

2. Find out if anyone actually wants what you're selling

Before commissioning market studies, rewriting the website or appointing a “Head of International”, talk to buyers.

Who buys your category in the market?

What do they currently buy?

From whom?

At what price?

What would make them switch?

An SME doesn't need to prove that Germany has a €500 billion economy.

It needs to establish that a German company will buy its product.

For Irish SMEs taking their first steps, Enterprise Ireland's Get Exporting programme is specifically structured around assessing export readiness, identifying markets, validating them and meeting potential buyers. The programme is targeted at early-stage exporters with less than €10,000 in annual export sales, subject to its other eligibility criteria.

Validation comes before expansion.

3. Work out what your product really costs overseas

You sell a machine in Ireland for €20,000.

A buyer in Dubai offers you €20,000.

Great deal?

Maybe.

Now add freight, insurance, customs clearance, tariffs, certification, bank charges, currency conversion, local taxes and potentially distributor margin.

Suddenly your €20,000 product isn't a €20,000 product anymore.

This is landed cost, and it can make an apparently attractive export opportunity economically pointless.

The importance of friction at the border is measurable. The OECD estimates that full implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement could reduce international trade costs by an average of 14.3% and potentially increase global trade by as much as $1 trillion annually. (OECD).

Trade costs matter.

Know yours before you quote the customer.

4. Find out what the rules are — before the goods leave

Now comes the part that scares many first-time exporters.

Customs classifications. Tariffs. Rules of origin. Export controls. Product standards.

Certificates. Import licences.

The good news is that much of this information is readily available.

The European Commission's Access2Markets service provides exporters with market-specific information covering tariffs, rules of origin, taxes, import procedures, product requirements and trade barriers.

And if you're exporting goods from Ireland outside the EU, Revenue states that you need an EORI number for dealings with customs authorities. (Revenue).

The critical word here is before.

Don't discover that your product needs a certificate when it is sitting in a customs warehouse 2,000 kilometres away.

5. Decide who is responsible for what

You've agreed the product and price.

Now answer some deceptively simple questions.

Who arranges the freight?

Who pays for it?

Who insures the goods?

Who completes export clearance?

Who handles import clearance?

Who pays duties?

And when exactly does the risk transfer from you to your buyer?

This is why Incoterms® matter.

The International Chamber of Commerce defines 11 Incoterms® 2020 rules covering the allocation of costs, obligations and risk between seller and buyer. (ICC).

“Don't worry, we'll sort out the delivery” is not an international trade term.

Agree it. Document it. Know who owns the risk at every stage.

6. Work out how you're going to get paid

Winning the order is exciting.

Getting paid is better.

And internationally, the two events can be separated by thousands of kilometres and several months.

The scale of the problem is enormous. The Asian Development Bank estimated the global trade-finance gap at $2.5 trillion in 2025 — roughly 10% of global trade. (ADB).

Payment terms therefore aren't an administrative detail.

They're part of the deal.

Options include:

• payment in advance;

• letters of credit;

• documentary collections;

• open-account terms; and

• other financing or risk-mitigation structures.

Cash in advance gives the exporter very strong protection against non-payment, but the U.S. International Trade Administration warns that insisting upon it can make an exporter less competitive because it transfers most of the risk to the buyer. (Trade Finance Guide).

The question isn't simply “Will they buy?”

It's “Will they buy on terms under which we are comfortable selling?”

7. Get control of the documents

Here is where international trade can become absurdly complicated surprisingly quickly.

The ICC estimates that global trade still relies on around four billion documents every day, while documentation for a single shipment can require up to 50 sheets of paper exchanged among as many as 30 different stakeholders. It also estimates that more than 90% of global trade documentation remains paper-based or effectively paper-based through PDFs. (ICC Digital Trade 101).

Those documents can include commercial invoices, packing lists, bills of lading, certificates of origin, insurance certificates, export declarations and licences.

But the real problem isn't the number of documents.

It's the number of people creating, changing, emailing, uploading and checking the same information.

Buyer. Seller. Freight forwarder. Customs broker. Carrier. Bank. Insurer. Government agency.

One transaction.

Multiple organisations.

And far too easily, multiple versions of the truth.

8. Treat your first export as a prototype

Your first international transaction does not need to be huge.

It needs to work.

So after it's complete, dissect it.

Where did the transaction slow down?

What did you underestimate?

Which documents were difficult?

What did freight actually cost?

Where did information have to be entered twice?

How long did customs take?

When did you actually receive the money?

Then fix the process before transaction number two.

Because international expansion isn't really about making one export sale.

It's about building a repeatable system that allows you to make 10, 100 or 1,000 of them.

The world isn't the hard part. The transaction is.

The sheer scale of global trade can make international expansion sound like something reserved for multinational companies with trade departments, logistics teams and banks in every country.

It isn't.

For an SME, the journey can be reduced to something remarkably straightforward:

Find the market. Find the buyer. Agree the price. Understand the rules. Allocate responsibility. Arrange the shipment. Create the documents. Get paid.

None of those activities is especially extraordinary on its own.

The problem is connecting them.

Because the moment you cross a border, what looked like a simple sale becomes a transaction involving multiple companies, systems, documents, responsibilities and versions of the same information.

Buyer and seller agree one thing.

The freight forwarder needs another.

The customs broker needs specific documentation.

The bank needs payment information.

Documents change. Dates move. Quantities are amended. Someone is working from yesterday's spreadsheet. Someone else has the latest PDF sitting in their inbox.

That is where international trade becomes difficult.

And that's exactly why we built iTradeDigital.

iTradeDigital is designed to give SMEs a structured way to manage an international trade transaction from beginning to end — without requiring them to become experts in every aspect of international trade before they start.

Instead of managing the transaction across spreadsheets, email chains, PDFs and disconnected service providers, iTradeDigital brings the key elements together in one shared workflow.

It helps buyers and sellers:

• structure the transaction from the outset, so everyone understands what is being bought, sold and agreed;

• choose the appropriate Incoterm® and clearly allocate responsibilities between buyer and seller;

• identify and generate the documentation required to move the goods;

• collaborate with counterparties and service providers in real time, rather than exchanging multiple versions of files by email;

• track the status of the transaction from agreement through shipment and payment;

• maintain a single source of truth for the entire trade; and

• build a permanent record of every international transaction, providing better visibility, reporting and decision-making over time.

The objective isn't to remove freight forwarders, banks, customs brokers or other specialists from international trade.

Quite the opposite.

It is to give everyone involved in the transaction one place to work from and one version of the truth.

Because SMEs don't need another 200-page guide explaining international trade.

They need to be able to sit down on Monday morning and say:

“We have a customer in another country who wants to buy from us. What do we do next?”

And then be guided through the transaction, step by step, until the goods have arrived and the money has been received.

That is the problem iTradeDigital is built to solve.

International trade doesn't need to become simpler in theory.

Your next international transaction needs to become simpler in practice.