The e-commerce market in Poland, while still dynamic, is becoming too tight for many companies. A natural step in development is therefore foreign expansion, also known as cross-border. The vision of acquiring customers in Germany, the Czech Republic, or Italy is extremely tempting and promises multiplied revenues. However, just like with implementing technological innovations, rushing and acting based on assumptions is a straight path to costly failure. So how do you prepare your company to enter new markets to record a profit instead of a loss?
Expansion is not just an opportunity, but also a risk
Many entrepreneurs treat entering a foreign market as a simple technical operation – just translate the store, connect foreign payments, and launch ads. Unfortunately, reality is much more complex. Each new market is a unique ecosystem with its own business, cultural, and legal specifics. Ignoring these differences and acting without a deep understanding of the context is like building a complex IT system without needs analysis – the offer we create is based on hypotheses, and the risk of failure is huge.
The problem is that the “let’s hope for the best” approach in cross-border e-commerce generates real costs. What can go wrong? Virtually everything:
- Cultural mismatch – What works in Poland may be misunderstood or even poorly received in another country. This applies to both marketing communication and the product itself.
- Logistical barriers – Shipping costs, customs duties, and above all, returns handling, can destroy the profitability of the entire venture.
- Legal and tax issues – Each country has different regulations regarding online sales, data protection (GDPR is just the beginning), and VAT settlements.
- Customer preferences – Preferred payment methods (e.g., deferred payments in Germany) or customer communication channels (e.g., WhatsApp in Italy) may be completely different from Polish standards.
Building a strategy based on your own Polish experiences is an action fraught with enormous uncertainty. Without solid preparation, you invest time and money in activities that may be doomed to failure from the start.
Let go of that mouse! The foundation is strategy, not technology
Before you start translating product descriptions and configuring shipments, stop and ask yourself a key question: why do I actually want to enter this specific market and how do I intend to do it?. Just like with investing in AI, first you need to understand the problem to be solved, and only then select the tools.
The best e-commerce platform won’t solve many expansion-related problems. The key is a strategy based on data and understanding the business in the new environment. And here we come to the core – the need to conduct strategic workshops. Although often perceived as an unnecessary cost, they are actually a key investment that secures the entire project.
Why do you need strategic workshops before expansion?
Strategic workshops before entering foreign markets play exactly the same role as Discovery workshops before implementing an IT project – they allow transforming something elusive and full of risks into a concrete, understandable action plan.
Here is what you gain from this approach:
- In-depth market understanding – Workshops are time for joint analysis of data, cultural specifics, competition, and consumer behavior in the target market. Instead of acting on hypotheses, you build a strategy on solid foundations.
- Identification of risks and opportunities – An external partner, looking at your business with fresh eyes, can identify threats you don’t see (e.g., complicated returns law), but also opportunities you haven’t thought of (e.g., a market niche).
- Reliable budget and schedule – Only after understanding all processes – from marketing, through logistics, to customer service – can you reliably estimate the costs and time needed to effectively launch sales. This eliminates the risk of underestimating the investment.
- Joint strategy development – Workshops are not a lecture. It is a process in which you provide knowledge about your business and product, and the external partner (agency, consultant) brings expertise regarding the given market. Together you create a plan that is tailored to your company and the realities of the new environment.
- Checking the “chemistry” – Expansion is a long-term project. Workshops are an excellent opportunity to check if you and the potential partner are on the same path and wavelength. Good communication is key when inevitable challenges arise.
The result of the workshops – i.e., a detailed market analysis and recommended entry strategy – becomes a value in itself. It is a roadmap that significantly reduces the risk and cost of the entire venture, regardless of who you ultimately execute it with.
In conclusion, foreign expansion in e-commerce is a huge opportunity, but only for the prepared. Investing in strategic workshops is not an unnecessary expense, but a mandatory first step. It allows making decisions based on data, not hunches, which in the long run is the only way to build a profitable business on the international arena.
Keywords: business risk, Magento, Shopware, Sylius, store optimization, e-commerce consulting, foreign expansion, workshops