What U.S. DTC brands should know before launching in Europe

When a consumer brand finds success in the U.S., international expansion is often waiting right around the corner, promising a wider market with a fresh customer base that just might replicate the same success story.But bringing your direct-to-consumer product to a new country comes with new obstacles, and it shouldn’t be rushed into without careful consideration and strategizing.At Bearaby, we spent five years growing in the U.S. market before launching our weighted blankets in Europe this fall. Looking back on our learnings, these are the three questions I believe any brand should be able to answer before launching in a new region.

1. Is it the right time—and the right place?Before approaching any international expansion, it’s crucial to take a step back and make sure you’re targeting the right place at the right time.Think about this new market: What does demand look like for your core product offering? Will you need to make any key product alternations? How do shipping and logistics factor in?When planning our European expansion at Bearaby, we settled on the German market as an ideal fit due to its rapidly growing base of wellness consumers. A 2023 market report showed that 64% of Germans experience sleeping issues, but only 33% of them use sleep aids. At the same time, our in-house SEO team identified an increase in search volume for weighted blankets in Germany.Broad quantitative data is a great place to start, but you’ll want qualitative information to guide your decisions, too. Outside of factors like search volume and market reports, speaking to actual residents of your target region will help you determine your regional product-market fit, and give you an early sense of how you’ll need to educate these consumers.Timing is also key: We opted for a fall launch in Germany because of the seasonal appeal of weighted blankets in a cold climate, combined with the boost of holiday gifting opportunities. The same logic wouldn’t have applied if we were expanding to a southern hemisphere location like Australia! Think about the seasonal appeal of your product and try to time any expansion efforts to maximize the appeal of your offering.
2. What do consumers need to know about your brand, and how will you tell them?Think back to when you launched your brand in the U.S., and consider the storylines you developed. How did you initially differentiate your product from others on the market? What did customers need to know in order to feel confident in their purchase? What pitfalls did you encounter?You’ll need to start at square one again when you approach a new international market. Even if your brand messaging feels like a well-oiled machine in your home market, fundamental questions are going to pop up again, and it’s safer not to assume that this new group of consumers has any baseline knowledge about what you’re offering.Truly localizing your brand storytelling is the best way to set yourself up for success when it comes to product education. For our German expansion, we translated our entire brand ecosystem into German, taking care to localize all product messaging well before launch so that no potential customers were left behind.As we started getting to know our new customers, we found that simply translating our U.S. customer education was only the first step towards localization. The first signs came from the comments on our social media ads: Our German customers were consistently asking for more product details than our U.S. customers. They wanted to dig deeper into the product, with in-depth questions about how to use, wash, and care for weighted blankets.These learnings, coupled with research into best practices employed by other German-based consumer brands, led us to adapt our unboxing experience for the German market. In the U.S., we’ve found that extra leaflets included in shipments tend to go unread, with customers preferring the ease of digital follow-up emails. In Germany, we pivoted to include a detailed physical leaflet with each order, explaining how to use and care for the item purchased. Small experiential improvements like this can go a long way towards creating a localized brand experience.
3. Who do you need to meet, and what regional expertise will you rely on?Now that you’re prepared to question some of your most basic brand assumptions as you move into this new market, you’ll need to build a team of partners that can steer you in the right direction. No amount of painstaking research can replace the experience of regional professionals.One of the most important steps you’ll need to take when expanding internationally is to find and onboard the right partner agencies in your new region. Differences in everything from operational systems to marketing strategies to PR best practices present a complex web of challenges for any young brand. The right partners will help you navigate your new market with insider knowledge and expertise.It’s also essential to begin connecting with the startup scene in your new region, so that you can begin building a network comparable to what you have in the U.S. Before our blankets were even available for purchase in Germany, I started reaching out to other founders in the health/wellness scene, trading tips and learning from their personal journeys. This base of connections helped give Bearaby the best foundation to grow in Germany.

No two brands are identical, and there’s no cookie-cutter model that can guarantee success. But if you anchor your decisions in basic questions about timing, messaging, and expertise, you can begin mapping out the road to international expansion with confidence. Just remember to stay curious along the way!

Kathrin Hamm, PhD, is founder and CEO of Bearaby.