UK consumer electronics brand · International expansion · 18 months
US market entry for a UK consumer electronics brand: $US 3.5m in 18 months.
A £7m to £8m UK consumer electronics brand with established UK DTC and Amazon UK presence, considering US market entry. The brief was the full US operational stack: entity, sales tax, 3PL, Amazon.com, US-domain Shopify, and supply chain routing direct from China to US fulfilment without consuming UK warehousing capacity.
What we worked on
- US entity setup. US LLC, EIN, federal tax registration, US bank account.
- Sales tax across priority states. Registered in the priority states based on projected nexus, with Avalara automation for ongoing compliance.
- US 3PL onboarded. East Coast 3PL selected and onboarded. Inbound supply chain re-routed for direct-to-US imports, freeing UK fulfilment capacity.
- US-domain Shopify. Separate US storefront with US-specific pricing, freight, currency and customer service stack. Not a redirect from the UK store.
- Amazon.com launch. Alongside DTC, with Brand Registry US, listing build, and PPC architecture rolled out in parallel.
- Operating cadence across UK and US. Weekly cadence so the US channel never operated in isolation from the UK base.
Outcomes
- $US 3.5m revenue in the first 18 months of US live
- Two US channels live and operationally stable (DTC and Amazon)
- Sales tax compliance current across all registered states
- UK fulfilment capacity protected through direct-to-US routing
What was hardest
Sales tax. The founder's working assumption was that US sales tax would behave like UK VAT. It does not. The complexity is comparable to managing VAT across three EU countries, and the operational discipline required took two months of conversation before it was accepted. Once the maths was honest, the rest moved fast.
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