Use design to improve your export potential

Good design can be vital to selling products overseas. Before you make your first export sale, you may need to modify your product to make it suitable for different customers or markets.

For example, you may need to change your product to suit local religious or cultural practices, living standards, customers' purchasing power and behaviours. You may also need to adapt it to satisfy differences in engineering and design standards or comply with overseas products and packaging regulations.

As well as the design of your product, you may need to look at adapting its secondary features, such as branding, packaging and labelling, or even marketing materials.

How much you adapt, if at all, should depend on your commitment to the specific market, the costs you would incur for adaptation, and the potential for revenues.

This guide will help you determine the extent to which you may need to adapt your design for overseas markets.