International business development provides businesses an opportunity to grow their audience and make more money.
The UK provides a potentially fruitful opportunity for international business development. As its economy continues to grow out of recession, customers in the UK and Ireland have more expendable income as well as a greater propensity to buy essentials.
If you own a business outside of the UK & Ireland and are looking to expand into these markets, here are our tips to help you get started:
1) Establish an address in the UK
Any business which wants to trade in the UK needs a UK address with which to do so. You need to register your business with Companies House using a UK address.
This could mean you need to buy or rent a physical address in the UK. This is the best option if you need a physical workspace here.
However, if you don’t need a physical space, it’s much cheaper and more convenient to buy a virtual office address. This means you will have a prestigious UK address without the costs of having to buy or rent a property.
You don’t need to travel to here to buy a virtual address, and can complete the purchase easily online in just a few simple steps. You can use this address to register your business, and to have mail sent to. All mail will be forwarded to you via email, meaning you’ll receive it the same day.
You can use a virtual address to promote your business, too.
2) Set up a UK bank account
This is not essential but it can make it easier to trade in the UK if you have a UK bank account. People are often more confident about paying for goods and services when the bank account to which they are paying is based in their country.
Using a UK bank account also means you can take payment in the UK currency and therefore won’t have to manage currency conversion for your customer.
If you do want to set up a UK bank account, it is possible to do so as a non-UK resident, though it can be more challenging. Try various different banks to find one which works for you; Lloyds and Barclays are usually quite good at working with non-UK businesses.
3) Create a UK targeted website
It’s important to grow your business that you promote it to your new UK market. A UK targeted website can really help you to do this.
There are various options available to international businesses when looking at creating or updating a website. The first thing to consider is what domain name you’ll use.
You could choose to buy a website domain which uses .co.uk. This is a UK specific domain name and therefore shows that the website is meant for the UK. Alternatively, you could create a subdomain (uk.yourwebsite.com) or subfolder (yourwebsite.com/uk). You can also specify language variations, for example yourwebsite.com/en-gb.
Your choice of domain name does not make too much difference to how the website will perform. It’s important to have content which speaks to UK users and that you have pages written in the English language and using British currency. You’ll need to explain how your products/services work for a UK market.
4) Provide an excellent level of service to the UK market
Though the UK market offers great opportunities for international business development, it is not an easy market to break into. UK customers want to buy from brands they can trust.
That’s not to say UK customers won’t buy from overseas, because they often do. But you’ll need to provide a high level of service and quality to build brand loyalty and trust.
If you’re looking at international business development, the UK is an excellent market to move into. We hope the tips we’ve provided here are helpful. You can also get in touch if we can help you further with your UK business address needs.
Doing Business in Ireland
Another popular option for international businesses is to build a presence in Ireland and, specifically, Dublin.
Dublin is well known as a hub for large, well known businesses, particularly in the tech sector. Google has made Dublin its home and many other technology companies have followed suit, and you can too.
Moving into the Dublin market starts with establishing a Dublin office. As with other UK addresses, you can choose to purchase or rent a physical office space (which comes at a premium in this popular city) or select a virtual address in Dublin instead.
Edinburgh, Scotland Businesses
If you’d like to build a presence in Scotland, this can also be done using a virtual address in Edinburgh.
A thriving business hub, Edinburgh is the perfect place to set up if you want to reach a Scottish audience or simply want the prestige of being based in the home of the Edinburgh Business School and other high profile companies like Skyscanner and Tesco Bank.
Both Edinburgh and Dublin are growing in popularity as business hubs and, especially since the Brexit decision, more and more companies are looking to diversify their presence across the UK & Ireland.
If you would like a more widespread presence across England, Scotland and Ireland, you can purchase 4 addresses in one package for just £480 per year. Find out more here.
published under International Business
