Page 15 - Export and Trade

US Market Focus

to complete this process – and have your US plan done easiest place in the world to live in, believes Blackwell.
before you contact them. Get quotes upfront; the range The US is a country set up for convenient living at a good
of cost is enormous. price, he adds.
3. Go there for a short two-week stay and interview your “The biggest challenge to building our business [here]
immigration lawyers. will be scaling up at a rate that doesn’t break us.”
4. Consider cities other than LA, New York and San STUN’s ultimate goal for the US is to be “acquired by
Francisco for your business, but be near a hub like WKH SHUIHFW SDUWQHU DQG ULVH WR WKH WRS RI WKH ¿HOG LQ WKH
Phoenix or Denver. Some smaller locations offer world’s most exciting business environment.”
incentives to operate there and you’ll save on rent,
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Amazon-mania: Understanding
Even though so much innovation comes from the the e-commerce landscape
US across so many business sectors, many Americans E-commerce is a fast and effective
are very conservative when it comes to business and way to secure the US market, and
‘big ideas’, warns Blackwell. “And many Kiwis are the this is assisted by the fact that more
complete opposite, which is why Americans tend to love e-commerce is now being transacted
doing business with us,” he says. “We usually believe that on mobile devices – more than 30
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But there is a catch, he says, and that’s budget. Export X, who has made a great
“Kiwis can trip themselves up by going in too cheap on success of guiding Kiwi companies into the US and, in
price for something that is really valuable. Don’t be cheap. particular, the Amazon marketplace.
It undervalues what you really can offer. Amazon continues to dominate e-commerce in the US
“We were in a meeting once where our US client kept DQG VHYHUDO RWKHU FRXQWULHV VHH WDEOH EHORZ 7KH *09
asking us what the extras were that we weren’t disclosing. JURVV PHUFKDQGLVH YROXPH RI H FRPPHUFH WUDQVDFWHG
They were in a state of disbelief over how cheap our prices through Amazon.com is now more than 40 percent
were. Ouch!” of all US retail e-commerce, he says (refer to
San Francisco as a city, and the US in general, is the www.businessinsider.com

Leading retailer websites on

Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2017

Number of transactions

Retailer Thanksgiving Black Friday Two-day total
Amazon.com 5,637,469 7,139,727 12,777,196
Walmart.com 1,736,749 1,139,003 2,875,752
BestBuy.com 1,036,403 646,066 1,682,469
Target.com 649,044 423,441 1,072,485
Kohls.com 603,807 438,728 1,042,535
ToysRUs.com 175,541 170,104 345,645
Macys.com 172,467 209,742 382,209
HomeDepot.com 137,475 182,774 320,249

Source: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2017/11/27/amazon-captures-55-of-black-friday-
transactions-among-top-online-retailers/

NZ Export & Trade Handbook 2018 13