Global marketing
Your best export product might be the smaller pack
By Prof. Alessandro Buffoli, PhD
For an unfamiliar food, the first purchase is also a commitment to finding a use for the rest.
A large jar of unfamiliar sauce asks for more than its price. It asks the customer to believe they will like it, know how to use it and finish it before it becomes another forgotten item in the fridge.
That makes pack size part of market entry. I would not assume that the bestselling format at home is the best format for introducing the product abroad.
Consider two hypothetical offers: a 200-gram jar at HK$40 and a 500-gram jar at HK$80. The larger jar is cheaper per gram. The smaller jar puts less money and less food at risk for someone who has never tasted either. Both observations are true.
If customers reject the large jar, a price cut is only one possible response. A trial size may address the actual hesitation more directly. It can also preserve a credible regular price for the product instead of teaching newcomers that the brand is normally on promotion.
Small does not automatically mean sensible
There are costs. Smaller packs can require more packaging per unit of food and may be expensive to produce, ship and display. A retailer may dislike a format that occupies shelf space without earning enough. Those effects need to be calculated, not hidden behind the word “trial”.
I would compare complete offers with clear usage instructions. If a small jar provides one meal and the large jar provides several, explain that using realistic serving quantities. Do not make the larger size look economical through an implausibly tiny serving.
The trial should follow customers beyond the first purchase. Do they finish the product? Do they buy it again? Do they move to the larger pack after learning how they use it? A small pack that sells once as a curiosity may be doing a different job from the one the company intended.
Let the customer earn the larger commitment
The sequence matters. First, help the customer have a successful experience with the food. Then make replenishment easy. A larger pack becomes more attractive when the customer has a specific use for it and knows how quickly it disappears at home.
For a proposed launch, I would therefore judge the small pack on what happens after trial as well as its own margin. Compare repeat contribution with the acquisition and packaging costs. Keep the analysis at customer level so a shift between sizes is visible.
The larger pack may still win. But that should be a result of the local test. Exporting the home-market format unchanged is a convenient operational choice; it is not yet evidence that the new customer wants it.
Prof. Alessandro Buffoli, PhD
Assistant Professor of Marketing at The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong.