After six years of export growth, ProtectaPet founder Eve Davies explains why less is now more – with the business withdrawing from 22 European markets to focus on sustainable growth.
“Following the Brexit vote, we faced a choice at ProtectaPet: pull back from exporting to Europe, or scale up sufficiently to make a European fulfilment operation commercially viable. We chose the latter. I’ll never forget waving goodbye to a wagon full of our stock on Christmas Eve, hoping it would make it across the border before 31 December 2019. It felt like a leap into the unknown.
It paid off. Within a relatively short time, we were serving 27 markets from one European fulfilment centre in Rotterdam. Our exports have gone from strength to strength, growing almost 2,000% in the last six years alone.
But as the business grew, so did the bureaucracy. First came the practicalities of Brexit: commodity codes, commercial invoices, export documentation, deferred payments and Dutch VAT registration. Then came One Stop Shop VAT. We adapted our accountancy systems to handle different European VAT rates and reporting requirements. Next was GPSR, bringing further product safety and labelling obligations.
We began producing instructions and safety information in scores of languages and ensuring our packaging met the new requirements. Then CBAM meant monitoring the steel we manufacture and export to support carbon emissions reporting. Most recently, we have been preparing for new packaging requirements under PPWR. If you’re lost with the acronyms now, I can only apologise!
For a small manufacturer, the challenge isn’t any single piece of legislation. We can solve problems. That’s what entrepreneurs do. The difficulty is the cumulative effect. You might imagine that one of the advantages of trading within a single market would be a broadly consistent approach.
In reality, requirements around packaging registration, representation, reporting frequency and thresholds can differ from country to country. The financial cost of registrations and representatives matters, but the greater cost is often time: understanding the requirements, implementing them correctly and maintaining reporting across numerous jurisdictions. Eventually, you have to ask whether serving every market still makes commercial sense.
This month, I made the difficult decision to stop shipping to 22 countries. It felt worthy of commiseration and celebration simultaneously. I hate withdrawing from markets where I know there is demand for our products. As entrepreneurs, we’re conditioned to celebrate expansion: the first export order, another country on the map, another market opened. Removing countries feels counterintuitive to the ‘master plan’.
But Brexit taught me something important. Entrepreneurs will always be buffeted by prevailing winds. The skill isn’t stubbornly continuing in the same direction; it’s recognising when the wind has changed and finding the opportunity in where it takes you next. For us, fewer markets means renewed focus. We can concentrate our investment on European countries where we have the scale to make compliance viable, while offering faster fulfilment, stronger native-language support and a better customer experience.
In 2019, our opportunity was to go regionally BIG.
In 2026, perhaps the real opportunity is to go deeper.”
This should be compulsory reading and consideration for all MP’s and Civil Servants.