Page 14 - Cross-Border Magazine Nr.3

~ Baker Ross ~

BAKER ROSS • Hermes are one of the largest delivery companies in Germany. • Having a local telephone number for customer services can

build trust in your brand.
A number of UK companies inject traffic into their network,
such as P2P Mailing, which I have used before.
• You can have a local German number redirected to your cus-
• Charge your customers a locally competitive shipping price.
They won’t pay extra because it is coming from the UK. Fortu- tomer services team in the UK if necessary. Bear in mind you
will always need to have German speakers on hand.
nately, free shipping is not as prevalent as it is in the UK. • Alternatively you can use, as we did, a local partner to provide
A SMALL GUIDE TO EX- higher international shipping costs. Allow for this in your Euro Salesupply. You will need to integrate IT systems to ensure
• Expect to lose more money on shipping than in the UK due to
telephone customer services for you in German. We used
transactions your partner enters into are correctly uploaded into
product pricing.
PANDING INTO GERMANY • Identify and do not list any product lines which may be very your order processing system.
expensive to ship to Germany due to weight or volume. A lot of
international parcel deliveries are generally charged by the gram
• Germans typically return items more than the average customer
and are not a flat rate so look out for this. Returns
• Finding an effective next day delivery service from the UK to in the UK. This is likely due to mail order history of trying
Germany is difficult. products at home on approval.
Text: Paul Giuffredi // Photos: Baker Ross Ltd., Paul Giuffredi, Stock
• Unlike the UK, there aren’t really any highlands, islands or • Find a local partner and use their address as a local in-country
remote areas in Germany, which makes delivery timescales fairly returns address. Not having a local returns address will be off-
consistent nationwide. putting for Germans.
• Get your local partner to notify you of returns by email and
Who? Paul Giuffredi is an experienced Finance and Commercial Director work-
Payment methods sendthem back to you periodically via consolidated shipping.
ing for Baker Ross, an international online retailer located in the UK. He enjoys • German customers are averse to debit or credit cards and sel- • There are a number of companies who offer local partner ser-
working for entrepreneurial businesses and making a difference to the compa- dom use them. The words for “guilt” and “debt” in German are vices. We used Salesupply again for this.
very similar and I am told this is one reason why they don’t like
ny’s success. He has been the FD of two private equity backed businesses, one
credit cards. Don’t be surprised if less than 10% of all orders are Tax, Currency and Finance matters
AIM listed business and an owner managed business. In addition to his core paid by card. • Price everything in the local currency (euro).
• Payment by invoice is popular due to mail order heritage. Such • When converting from UK pricing, round it up a bit to give
financial responsibilities, he is also responsible for several commercial areas.
orders often account for 25% or more of all orders. This is yourself some extra margin. If the market don’t bear the prices
almost unknown in the UK. Fail to offer this payment method you can always reduce them later.
at your peril. • If you sell both on a marketplace and on a local website then
aker Ross is an online retailer of our own brand of approach. • A company called Klarna offer this as a payment method with- make your website prices slightly cheaper than on the market-
children’s craft products. Prior to 2013 it was purely a • I took a more entrepreneurial approach: for a minimal cost I got a out having to run your own invoice book. place site. I will explain why below.
Bdomestic business, but mid-2013 I made the decision to few hundred of our products translated and put on Amazon.de. I • Bank transfer is also an expected option (ELV or Sofort). • Get a local bank account. Your UK bankers should be able to
test the German market. I launched Baker Ross on Amazon.de then waited to see what happened, and I received loads of orders! • PayPal is very popular due to the ease of using it with a smart give you a referral. You will need this for all the bank transfer
and we received 30,000 orders in the first 12 months. By 2016, • Amazon.de will allow you to improve your delivery and cus- phone. receipts you will be getting. Germans may incur bank transfer
this had increased to 100,000 orders annually. By early 2014 it was tomer services before you launch your own German website. fees if you ask them to send funds to a UK based euro account.
clear that we should set up a German website. We received 10,000 • It is better to make mistakes on Amazon.de than on your own Customer services • Link your PayPal euro account to your German-based euro bank
orders in the first year, which increased to 50,000 orders a year by site. German customers will “blame” Amazon.de and not make • German customers will more or less have the same queries and account. PayPal will rip you off on exchange rates if you link it to
2016. Within only a few years Germany has become a multi- a link to your website or brand. concerns as they do in the UK. Many of the standard answers a UK based account (due to not being in the euro zone).
million pound market for Baker Ross. This could happen for many you use in the UK can therefore also be applied to Germany. • Link your Amazon account to your German-based euro bank
other businesses too. Translations • Do not use Google Translate to draft emails to customers. Ger- account. The same reasons apply as above.
There are over 80 million people in Germany, with nearly 90 mil- • Get them done professionally and use a reputable agency. I tried man customers will think your staff are illiterate. • Once your gross revenues are 100,000 euros or higher in any
lion German speakers if you include Austria. Germans like online a few and then settled on one. Translate Media are the best I • Google Translate can be effective, however, for interpreting calendar year you have to register for local VAT. This is due to
shopping almost as much as the British. The recent fall of the have worked with so far. incoming messages. EU distance selling regulations. Failure to do this could lead to
value of the pound following the Brexit vote means UK retailers • Give the agency a brief about your brand tone and values and • It may be expensive to recruit German speakers when your penalties and back tax.
can competitively price their products in Germany whilst still make sure they maintain the tone of your brand. business first launches in Germany. The level of orders may not • Use your local partner or a UK based VAT specialist to register.
making good profit margins. In my opinion, the German online • You will want to get your new season products live as soon as be sufficient to justify the cost. Accordance and Meridian are well known. Don’t use your audi-
retail market is slightly less competitive than the UK, which gives possible. Be sure to allow for translation lead times in the plan- • A cheaper option is to create a matrix of standard outgoing tors as they will rip you off.
us entrepreneurial Brits a good opportunity. ning process. message phrases / sentences, but be sure to get it professionally • When selling within the EU there is currently no need to attach
translated. Non-German speaking staff can create grammati- customs documentation or commercial invoices to the parcel,
Here are my top tips for entering the German market as Logistics / Parcel delivery cally correct outgoing messages using the matrix. but this may change as a result of Brexit in 2019.
an online retailer: • German customers can be demanding and will expect reliable • As business picks up, look into hiring part-time and then full- • Get your local partner to review your own website carefully
Marketplaces timely delivery. time German speaking staff. They will answer messages quicker before go live. They need to make sure it complies to the local
• Marketplaces are a good testbed to see whether there is demand • Delivery times for regular parcels from the UK to Germany are than an English person using a matrix as mentioned above. standard for returns, refunds and data protection.
for your products in Germany. only a few days. • I would generally advise having a local phone number for cus-
• Big companies often spend a lot of money upfront on market • Deutsche Post / DHL offer a great service and have a locker- tomer services. Some internet retailers go down the email-only Legal Matters
research before launching in a new country: this is the textbook based click and collect network. route and I understand this. • This is an area where a localisation partner can really add value.

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