We say it a lot, but it bears reminding — Europe is not a country. And your global expansion strategy cannot be monolithic. Each country takes a special approach, especially when talking about enterprise hardware or consumer electronic sales. Heck, even Amazon works differently by region — and that’s a lot easier to get listed on than the big brick-and-mortar chains that vary by nation.

This isn’t just about post-Brexit, import-export logistics. (Which is a whole other thing to consider.) As I was talking about with one of our French channel sales specialists Clement Lottier, you aren’t going to reach new markets via your website — even if you’ve translated it (which you should.)

Each European market and each vertical demands its own channel sales strategy.

If you are a hardware provider — or sometimes even a SaaS provider — a channel sales strategy can play an important role in your early expansion plan. You need your products present where local enterprises are shopping — online and off.

Sometimes a channel partner strategy is your fastest way to get on the ground. If you find the right channel distribution partner…

Channel Selection: Choose wisely

Beware of generic offers. Just like you can’t go pan-European from Day One, you need to understand local channels to find your best route to market. Not all channels are the same. Whether you’re selling B2B versus B2B2B or B2B2C, it’ll change the way you will approach each country’s channel strategy. And just because you are finding success in a big-name European chain like FNAC, MediaMarkt or Carrefour in one country, doesn’t mean you necessarily will in another — but that’s often a good starting point. It’s best to start pilots with one or two channels per country and then expand or pivot in response.

How do you know if a channel is the right fit — or not?

• Alignment: Ensure each channel’s goals and target markets align with your own. Our French country manager Yves de Beauregard reminds us that there are a lot of different distribution roles to consider. Does the channel have a professional and active sales team locally with enough time to dedicate to your brand? Or are they just box-movers — their costs are much lower but their service offering is narrower. For an unknown brand — or even a whole new product category — the latter might not be enough to educate the new market and drive toward Sold Out.
• Expertise: Look for channel partners with deep category knowledge in your industry. And who knows the local competition, market trends and emerging opportunities and how to help you stand out. Be sure to check out their websites — the right partners will have GDPR and other local and European regulations clearly in place — you don’t want your reputation abroad tied with a dodgy offline or online channel.
• Reputation: Consider each channel’s track record and customer satisfaction. Feel free to ask for references and check reviews like on Trustpilot. If a distributor already resells your competitor, Yves says, it could be a drawback or advantage: “It all depends on your brand image and market leadership, including elsewhere in Europe.”
• In-store location: If your products are also sold to consumers, you may need to consider and manage where your product is placed in stores. On-website placement is important too, but you can usually check that from afar. In-store placement can be trickier to keep an eye on. Don’t be afraid to ask your channel partners to at least send you pics. “Since in-store real estate is a constraint, select the fastest-moving SKUs [stock keeping units] and the right display, before expanding with additional product lines when sales pick up,” Yves explained. If you’re new to a market, there may also be challenges around where in the store your device goes, like we experienced with a fintech consumer electronics disruptor that eventually found an in-store home in the mobile accessories section. Yves commented that a "gitterbox" pop-up display in the checkout queue is especially successful.

Effective Enablement: Empower your partners

Train on your tools, your messaging and your brand. Enable your partners to demo your product and understand your niche. And make sure that your brand is properly represented by each channel partner — online and off.

• Training: Offer comprehensive training on your products, feature deep-dives, value propositions and technical specifications. This is best done well-ahead of the launch. “Your sales and marketing partners should become your ambassadors,” Yves recommends, “with a full knowledge of your products even ahead of launch while keeping for themselves the embargoed info.”
• Marketing Materials: Equip them with high-quality marketing collateral and sales tools, including case studies and proof of your success. “A reference client that is known worldwide may help,” Yves said, “but not as much as a referral coming from a local brand you already count as a good customer.” And always make sure to have your case studies translated into local languages.
• Support: The right channel partners will go beyond selling your product via distribution channels like brick-and-mortar stores and in-country online retailers. They will help you with in-store positioning, point-of-sale pushes and other details. But you still need to be prepared with in-country customer support in those local languages.

Strong Communication: Build trust and collaboration with on-the-ground partners

Opening up a new country market can be tricky, especially if you are looking to sell hardware, consumer electronics or even SaaS via distribution channels. Channel sales relies on specialization and existing, long-term relationships.

When expanding abroad, you can’t always be there on the ground and you need existing relationships with local offline and online channel sales channels. It helps to partner with a local sales outsourcing service like ours to help enact your European channel sales strategy.

This is a service that we at Sales Force Europe have offered from the start way back in 2003 — but it’s not one we’ve talked about a lot. Makes sense because our origins are in the telco and networking space, which enables a lot of channel sales. Thankfully, our country managers have been with us at least a decade each, so they have those essential relationships with regional and local sales channels that tech scale-ups rely on for a faster path to market.

Our channel sales representatives act on behalf of your team — right down to the business cards and LinkedIn profile updates. They speak the language and know the culture, and can represent your brand at industry trade shows and events.

With us, not only do you have direct access to our channel sales specialists, you have weekly check-ins with our country managers. We work with a sophisticated tech stack, but are also happy to integrate with yours — whatever works for you. It’s all about open communication.

• Regular Check-Ins: Maintain open communication with your third-party partners through regular meetings.
• Feedback Loops: This is especially important as you are often testing out new markets. Working with a pan-European channel sales agency like ours allows you to pivot quickly if needed.
• Transparent Reporting: The right partner will provide clear and timely sales data and performance metrics.

What it comes down to is you focusing on what you do well — building exceptional technology that serves a unique purpose — and then hiring specialists to take care of the rest. For us, this specialization is grounded in our long-term relationships with third-party distributors in every major European country.

A channel sales strategy is essential when you are expanding abroad. We can help you make it happen. Let's talk!

Learn more from Clement by reading: A Channel Sales Strategy to Scale Your Consumer Electronics, and, if you are planning to target the French channel sales market, Yves created this must-read Guide to Channel Sales in France.