Overcoming cold feet with Cozy Sheep
Written by Lotte Andkjær Christensen
Before launching in a new market, it’s quite normal to experience some sort of cold feet.
The trick is to not let those cold feet take the lead. The Cozy Sheep, is a Danish company who knows more about cold feet than most. The Cozy Sheep has been selling slippers, socks and blankets made from quality eco-friendly wool since 2015.
The company is based near Aarhus, but is currently in the process of expanding their operation into five more countries.
Michael Jørgensen is CEO at The Cozy Sheep. When we met him earlier this year at Succeed Abroad - our annual event dedicated to international e-commerce - we asked him to share some of his best tips for overcoming cold feet.
“I came here to gather information - to learn and be inspired - from other e-commerce businesses,” says Michael.
The Cozy Sheep is already active internationally, but learning from previous experiences, have decided to do things differently this time around.
“We have previously tried doing translations ourselves,” says Michael. “But the localisation was just not good enough, and that led to errors on our site, and in our marketing. This time we will ally with a professional localisation partner - like MakesYouLocal.”
Localisation is more than translating the texts on your website. It’s also about understanding the more subtle cultural differences that exist across Europe - like for instance in consumer behaviour and formality.
“The most interesting part about expanding into new countries is experiencing the differences in culture,” Michael explains. “For instance, how customers write to us on email. The Germans are very formal, Dutch people are very direct. it's fun to see how different cultures communicate.”
While being an expert in literal cold feet, might not make you an expert in cold feet of the proverbial kind. But Michael does have some solid advice, for those who doubt whether international expansion is the way to go.
“When you are choosing which countries to go to, it’s important to do some market research and then make a plan,” he says. “Find out what is the search volume for your product, explore the competitive environment, and investigate the local pricing of your product."
“Then just go for it. It's not that complicated.”
See the full interview with Michael right here:
Thanks for sharing your experience, Michael.
This is the latest story in our series where 50+ top e-commerce professionals share their learnings on market expansion tactics, localisation and technology across markets with our learning community. Check out the full collection for more tips.
