The Impact of Export Strategy on Export Sales Performance

Export sales are an important route to growth for the small-to-medium sized firm. This article reports the results of an extensive empirical study of the export strategies of a large sample of high technology electronics firms, and the performance results of adopting alternate export strategies. Six strategy scenarios were identified. The results show that the types of foreign markets selected, segmentation strategies and product strategies all have a pronounced impact on export sales and export growth. The best performers—a group of firms called the “world marketers” and representing 13.5% of the sample—achieved a dramatic 188% annual growth in exports and exported 52.5% of their output. The profiles of firms that elected each strategy scenario were determined also.