Gender export gap in Scotland: research

Appendix 7: Women exporters - illustrative quotes

Theme 4.2.1.1. Challenges to export

“It's not clear what sort of support there is for that… I'm a little bit kind of flying blind in that respect. We have got some revenue from internationalisation and XXX are always keen to see that, but in terms of how we get that next like… I don't really know how we do that, right? So, it's a bit difficult” (Participant 4).

“I don't know what happened to the contacts from XXX because at one point they were very involved. And then they seem to disappear. So, I don't know where our contact went, and I haven't pursued it or tried to find out… So, we got funding towards going to shows… But then only that disappeared and seemed to stop” (Participant 6).

“They have an idea of people they want. There was a digital grant, Digital Boost… And it's been going for years, and I know that one year we went for it and basically what happened we failed… While we heard all the big companies have stuff ready… They're not the guys that necessarily need it, but they have it already, they know it, and they get it… And I really think this is an issue as well” (Participant 1).

“Brexit was the biggest issue for us. We lost a load of our European customers because they didn't want to pay taxes anymore. It caused huge increases on our costs, our fabric… We use organic cotton fabric, and you can't grow cotton in Scotland. So, we have to import and whilst we manufacture most things ourselves, we do still have stuff made in factories in Europe and Turkey. So, those costs jumped” (Participant 1).

“Products were getting stuck at customs and people were having to go and pick it up and pay an inordinate amount of money, more than the product, more than the overall order… We spent about almost a year trying to work out what we had to do, and part of the problem was no one knew what was going to happen. So, no one could prepare you for that and no one knew what the solutions were. So, it took quite a while for those solutions to become apparent, and we then started to work with a company that helped us just like to ship without all of those charges being so onerous. And that's what we're doing at the minute. But the consumer has stepped back a little bit because of the challenges” (Participant 7).

“A challenge we've had since Brexit in our fashion world… It's much easier for clients to shoot in mainland Europe because they don't have to carry the collections over to the UK. So, it's just that perception that is just more difficult to do business here. So, if you're thinking about bringing lighting specialist cameras, high-end talent from around the world… And then the clothes themselves, the collections. It's easier to go to France, to Italy, or to Spain, or you know the Canary Islands are really popular place to shoot fashion. So, if they could reverse Brexit, that'd be great” (Participant 14).

“A lot of the times the challenge is about being able to retrieve our cost and finances for delivering these services… Because the timeline of the big organisations doesn't really match with us… Although we've delivered the work, we know we're going to get paid, but it's not in the right time for us… Two weeks to a month difference makes a lot of difference. Whether we can sustain workforce” (Participant 8).

“I have experienced gender stereotype outweigh in terms of raising investment and funding… I have had to work extremely hard to get the investment… And I know that if I was a man… I wouldn't have had to go through so many rounds of investment, and I would have had a much bigger chunk of investment”. (Participant 7).

“I have actually been turned down for training gigs with our partner because I'm a woman. And it's my course, I wrote it. I deliver it, and often I have to send a man because we're training in the Middle East and there are some cohorts of men that will not be trained by a woman... I have to send a man to deliver it in my place” (Participant 4).

“The big challenge for any exporter is to understand the market… How are we going to get money from our buyer keeping the business safe? How will we risk the export? is the right way to selling it? How will I get my money? How fast can I export? What are the challenges I can face in export? What is the right paperwork I need in the country of export? These were the big questions for every new country” (Participant 5).

“I think more than anything exporting regulation and distribution... So, I've had time with a rep from XXX who's based in America. So, she helped me to understand the market, and I also got a XXX... I got them to do some international research for California... But they pulled together a huge, big like plan of stuff. It's been really helpful and just speaking to people like the trade mission ladies been quite helpful. But apart from that, I'm not going with a huge amount of knowledge. I have to be honest” (Participant 11).

“It's a more difficult thing for a woman to do because they've just got family. Then you need to have the support… if you want to go abroad to go and do a trade show.

So, it's not like in a man's world… The majority, just say, yeah, I'm going to this country. If a woman's going, she's got to organise the whole bling, the whole of her life” (Participant 6).

Theme 4.2.1.2. Support provision

“My network needs to change as well. So, I'm out actively looking for other founders who've raised investment because that's my new goal. So, I'm actively building my network in that space. However, I have quite a good network through XXX and just generally being part of the business ecosystem in Scotland… I've basically been around that long now that I'm part of the brickwork” (Participant 4).

“When I used to travel, I used to get 50% of my expenses covered by XXX… That made me take that risk to travel abroad further away and meet my clients. Those resources were very helpful” (Participant 5).

“But the support which is very helpful still today is for example, the support businesses from XXX and XXX, even if it is small grants, which is it grant or for you know like this which helps in buying equipment... There are subsidies and grants available for that one grant. I used to find very useful which really helped me in the beginning of my journey” (Participant 5).

“We're on the growth pipeline with XXX we got funding. We've done a crowdfunding campaign and we had two-part time machinists’ supremacists, and we relaunched on July 2017” (Participant 1).

“In the accelerator… There are regular sessions… for example, selling or exporting, somebody's like covering their export journey and investment sessions. A business growth session which was interesting… We have benefited from things like that” (Participant 9).

“I've just done that business growth course and it was really interesting, really inspired me to do other things… if there was a section in that could actually, specifically, deal with exporting… Because we had a lot of mentors and a lot of people that were in talking about their business... And you thought - Oh my God, that's amazing - But then you go away and you think -well, what do I do about that?... it's about growing your business... I did it through Dundee University” (Participant 6).

“To be fair, I think government support we've actually done pretty well with and my account manager that I currently have with XXX, and I have an account manager with XXX as well. They've been very good. I have to say and wherever they can help me, they will... They want to see us do well, and they want to see us go international” (Participant 4).

“They're feeling like they need more support, then they can involve the person from the XXX desk in that country. And that person can help them with zoom calls… Now with zoom, a lot of contacts are made… So, I think if they are really needing a support from that point of view, maybe XXX or the trade desk in the XXX in that country can help arranging meetings and calls” (Participant 5).

Theme 4.2.1.3 Support required to grow internationally

“I think more awareness comes back to having events where businesses are talking about their experiences… Like a roadshow thing that they could go around and speak to other businesswomen and encourage them to go down the route of export and let them know that it's not too difficult and then have the back up there that like - OK, I want to go and do a show and there's shows in Las Vegas…can I actually do that? What's the best way? Who are the contacts so that I can go out there?” (Participant 6).

“I think just making it easier to participate in those things. Generally having more advanced warning, a lot of these things appear, and you know it takes a lot of time and resource for a small business to be able to get organised to go…. It's like let us know when it's happening, give us lots of notice, make it easy to take part. Don't make us jump through too many hoops because we're busy running our businesses” (Participant 14).

“Then it is maybe some real connections to organisations here. For example, when you are exporting and importing, you need customs agents, companies which specialise in customs from the UK for example to export. So, who are these people? Who are these companies? What kind of companies they should look out for?” (Participant 5).

“To support women to go and attend shows and see the potential…. if someone could say to me - let's support you to go to one of the most prominent outdoor shows, we will support you by contributing to the cost of that… The biggest challenge is… all of the costs associated with getting yourself there. If I got there and I've got my product set up and my stand looks great. There's nobody going to sell it better than me… And then that starts that sort of flywheel of being able to have wholesalers or agents in these countries” (Participant 7).

“I would have liked to have been able to pick up a phone to somebody and ask a question and I get information about it… I asked other people that I knew who were involved in export. I would pick up the phone to them and say - oh, I've got an enquiry from how I do that or… What paperwork do I need?” (Participant 6).

“I asked XXX once If I could get some export help and I said I didn't know about regulations and obviously packaging is a big deal when you've got a cosmetic product. So, I asked them for some help and then they put me in touch with this supposed expert who told me that all I needed to do was go on to one of these websites and find out what the requirements were on there, and I thought - well that ticks the box there, but that doesn't do anything else” (Participant 11).

“Organising short term courses like you know one-and-a-half-day course most women can attend because their children are at school. So, half day courses where they can go and attend to understand how the logistics work; how the supply chain works… how can they get their money safely from a country they are going to export to; what are the various instruments for getting their money back” (Participant 5).

“I went to an event... A few weeks ago, and actually it was brilliant, and I hadn't been to a networking event for ages. We were all women. We were all business owners or worked in business at a higher level... We're not good if we're not strong ourselves. So, it was really powerful just to sit and talk about how you keep well and positive. and deal with everything that gets thrown at you every day. Everybody's trying to be gender neutral nowadays that you can't deny the fact that women behave in thinking a very different way to men. I think that having women only... Allowed to say this is how I feel in this situation.... It was an event it organised by the XXX” (Participant 10).

Theme 4.2.1.4 Opportunities to grow

“I was not doing any local sales at all. Then there was a huge problem I faced in 2005… I had already started getting inquiries from other countries, and I was also researching data for other countries. When I had a big problem in India, that's when I realised that maybe it was not a good idea to keep focused on a single market, even though it was a large market. It was still a single market and that's when I decided to start expanding my business to other countries. So, then I started selling to Pakistan and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and China” (Participant 5).

“The English language was a big thing because I wanted to make sure that I could deliver the best service. And I chose the Orange County trip because it's a really affluent area, and we do sell at a slightly higher price point. Although it's definitely not a luxury product and they're quite eco-conscious over there. So have done a bit of research on it. I don't think all of America is, but certainly the West is a bit better” (Participant 11).

“We regulate as part of our DNA to export our services to various locations around the world. These locations are driven by the market of our clients. Broadly speaking, we work with client seeking protection in US, Canada. Some Latin American countries really, depending on the sector, for instance, we have a client recycling used coffee beans …And then if we move to Asia, we've got India, China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong... So, we have a really broad list of foreign associates that we work with” (Participant 2).

“What we've done is we invested in some software to enable us to process our export orders seamlessly in terms of we get all the paperwork right, and we work very closely with pallet companies that we're sending… So, they make it easier for us. What we do is all the customers who are ordering from across Europe will place an order with us, and they will ask us to deal with all of it. So, all of the shipping, we'll get quotes for the delivery… tell them what the cost of that delivery is" (Participant 6).

“I'd say that's about 92% of sales are via Amazon (Spain and Italy). I also still have an Etsy (Switzerland) account and I keep that going because I get a lot of international sales from that. So, it's actually quite good market research to see where people are buying from internationally there….I also have an e-commerce website” (Participant 13).