Finding the Appropriate Market

Abstract

The most important decision which the potential exporter is likely to make is in choosing his first foreign market. Curiously enough this is a decision which is often made in the most casual way — chance, rather than a systematic search of alternatives being allowed to decide the issue. Provided that a good deal of effort and money is not going to be pre-empted in this rather casual decision, no great harm may be done. If, however, the product or the market chosen is such that the decision is going to be costly, whether or not the market choice turns out to be appropriate, then a more systematic search for markets is only common sense — the stakes are too high for anything else.