I spoke recently with the owner of an Irish company that sells its products online to purchasers in the US and other countries. The US isn’t a true focus of this company’s expansion efforts, but the US market is a nice added benefit to the company’s revenue stream. They don’t have a US-specific website, but if you go to their order page you can enter a US address for delivery. In discussing their sales efforts, I asked what the company does in terms of US-focused terms/conditions of sale and related agreements. Nothing, I was told, because the company isn’t ‘doing business’ in the United States. In a limited way, that answer is correct. But, that answer also is wrong, and dangerously so. Continue reading
doing business in the united states
Practical Due Diligence on Distributors–it is possible!
If your company is thinking about expanding into the US market, chances are that you’ve considered a distribution arrangement (or something similar) with a US person or entity. You may even have been inundated with offers from ‘eager’ third parties to be your distributor, agent, etc. One frequent question is how can an Irish/NI company gather and analyze enough information about a third party to make a good decision about whether to engage with that person/company. Continue reading
What is this blog for, anyway?
Someone once suggested to start at the beginning, which is a good idea for the first post for a new blog. What is it that this blog is trying to do? In two words, the blog promotes “smart exporting.” Continue reading