Abstract:

The paper takes the view that increasing affluence in Europe will produce greater opportunities for developing export markets in consumer goods and that those will be attractive to smaller as well as large exporting organisations. It discusses some of the special problems of conducting export market research for smaller companies. It contains a critique of the traditional approach to appraising export markets and contends that this approach is orientated too heavily towards providing a broad general overview of a market and too little towards considering the practical needs of prospective exporters. It takes the view that export market research for smaller organisations must pay a great deal of attention to organisation for production and marketing, since it is these factors that bear heavily upon the feasibility of developing export markets.