Guide · Market entry
US market entry, the first twelve months.
Written by people who have physically opened markets, not advised on them from a slide. The US is not one market and it is not pure DTC. It is a set of metros, mostly bought on a physical floor, with tax, labour and format traps a European head office never sees coming. Here is the sequence, in order.
This guide, in 6 parts
It is omnichannel, and it is fifty tax regimes.
Two facts reshape every European entry plan. The first: most US retail still happens in a store. E-commerce was 16.9% of the total in early 2026, so an entry built as pure DTC is built for a sixth of the market. The second: there is no national tax and no national anything. You enter a metro, you owe tax to cities, and you hire under rules that change at the state line.
So the work is not "launch in the US". It is land in one metro as an omnichannel operator, with the store and the site joined, the tax and entity set up before the first sale, and the team hired to local rules. The rest of this guide is that, in the order we run it.
« There is no national launch. There is a first metro, and then the next one. »
Plan for the metro, not the country-level number.
National statistics are useful for sizing the prize and dangerous for planning the entry. The US is dozens of distinct economies. New York is a 2.3 trillion dollar metro that behaves nothing like the Sun Belt; income, density, format, rent and the way people shop all swing hard from one corridor to the next. A plan built on a national average is a plan for a place that does not exist.
One number, three different businesses.
The same product can need a flagship in one metro, wholesale in another and online-only in a third, because the rent, the density and the shopping habit are different in each. Pick the metro first, then let the format, the assortment and the channel mix follow from that specific market, not from a slide about the United States.
A note on sources: many of the sharpest metro-level retail and demographic figures come from a single source per market. We treat single-source metro stats as indicative, good enough to choose a corridor and size a bet, not precise enough to underwrite the plan on their own.This is why we run the US as a corridor and serve it in person, rather than from one address that claims the whole country. Where we work, and the metro realities behind each market, are on our United States page.
The sequence, in the order it has to happen.
Six moves across the first year. The order is the whole point: the boring infrastructure gates the revenue, and the format gates the store.
Pick one metro and commit, do not enter the country
There is no national launch, only a first metro. Choose one corridor you can serve in person, decide whether the entry is a flagship store, a wholesale and concession push, marketplace and DTC, or a mix, and write down what a win looks like in that one place. A European brand that spreads a launch budget across the map gets thin everywhere and known nowhere. Land in one metro, prove the economics, then copy the play to the next.
Stand up the entity, tax and banking before you sell a thing
Form the US entity, register for sales tax where you will have nexus, open US banking and payment processing, and get import, duty and product-compliance sorted for what you ship. None of this is the fun part and all of it gates revenue. Economic nexus means the first out-of-state online orders can create a filing obligation you did not plan for, so set up collection before the orders arrive, not after the first notice.
Localise the site for how Americans actually buy
A European storefront does not travel unchanged. Prices shown tax-exclusive then added at checkout, US sizing and units, address and ZIP validation, the carriers and the free-shipping expectation, the returns policy a US shopper assumes, and the payment methods they reach for first. Build the site to meet US accessibility expectations from day one as well, because retail is the most-sued category for web accessibility and the bill lands fast.
Open the floor to the metro, not to your home format
If the entry includes a store, size it and lay it out for the metro you chose, not the format that works at home. American shoppers expect to touch the product, to find selection, and in most formats to shop weekly rather than daily. The graveyard of European retail in the US is full of stores that imported a home-market format wholesale. Decide the format from the local shopper backward, and let the floor look like it belongs on that street.
Wire the store and the website into one stock and one customer
The US shopper moves between screen and floor in a single trip, so the join has to exist on day one: one inventory truth, one customer identity, one order any channel can complete. This is the seam that makes an omnichannel entry work, and it is the part nobody owns by default because the store team and the web team are usually built as two companies. Fix the join first, then add the tools that ride on it.
Hire the first US team to US rules, not your handbook
Your home employment handbook does not apply, and assuming it does is where European orgs get hurt. Hire to at-will employment, US payroll and benefits, and the state-by-state rules that sit on top of federal law, with work authorisation handled properly for anyone you move across. Get the first five hires and the first payroll right, because the cost of getting US employment wrong is not a warning letter, it is a lawsuit.
What to launch with, and what to add once it works.
The temptation is to arrive with the full stack. The discipline is to launch with the few things that gate a sale and being found, then add the floor technology once the metro is proven. Buy the rest when the volume justifies it, not before.
Launch with these
- A localised commerce site: US payments and processor, tax calculated at checkout, US carriers, returns and accessibility built in.
- The entity, tax registration and fulfilment behind it, so the first order can legally and physically ship.
- One inventory truth and one customer identity across the store and the site, so the channels are joined from day one.
- Findability in US AI search and Google, because an unknown brand in a new market is invisible until the engines name it.
Add once the metro is proven
- In-store floor technology: electronic shelf labels, pick-to-light and live floor data, once a store is open and earning.
- Store-as-fulfilment and ship-from-store routing, after the floor is stable and the stock truth is trustworthy.
- Deeper personalisation and loyalty, once there is enough US customer data to make it pay.
- The next metro, copied from a play that is now proven rather than guessed.
Omnichannel is the goal, but it is sequenced. Get the join and the site right first; the in-store hardware earns its place once there is a floor and the numbers to back it.
What a European org does not see until it bites.
None of these show up in a market-size deck. All of them are invisible from a European head office, and each one has ended an entry.
Sales tax is a city-level problem, not a VAT
There is no national rate. Over 12,000 jurisdictions set tax by state, county, city and district, with roughly 577 rate changes a year, and economic nexus means you owe in states where you have no presence the moment you cross a sales threshold. A team that thinks in one VAT number will under-collect for a year and discover it in an audit.
At-will employment is not the same as easy to comply
Forty-nine states are at-will, which sounds simple to a European used to notice periods and works councils. It is not. Federal rules stack with state rules that differ sharply, classification and overtime are litigated hard, and hiring or firing on home-market instinct is exactly how a new US entity buys its first employment claim.
Your website is a litigation target on day one
US web-accessibility lawsuits run into the thousands every year, retail and apparel are the most-targeted category, and New York, Florida and California are the hotspots a DTC launch lands in first. A storefront that is fine under European norms can draw a demand letter in its first weeks. Build to the standard before you turn on traffic, not after.
The home-market format does not travel
Tesco opened more than 200 Fresh & Easy stores and left in 2013 having lost around 1.6 billion dollars, undone largely by a small store format and locations that read as European to American shoppers. The lesson is not that the US is impossible, it is that the format and the location have to be decided from the local shopper backward, every time.
« The US does not punish you for being foreign. It punishes you for assuming it works like home. »
Ready to open, when you can tick all six.
Until each of these is true, the entry is a plan, not a launch.
- One metro chosen, with a written definition of what winning there looks like.
- US entity, sales-tax registration where you have nexus, banking and payments live before first sale.
- Site localised for US buying: tax-at-checkout, sizing, carriers, returns, payments, accessibility.
- If a store: format and location decided from the local shopper, not the home format.
- One inventory truth, one customer identity, one order any channel can complete.
- First US hires and first payroll built to at-will, state-specific employment rules.
Frequently asked.
Is the US a DTC market we can enter online only?
Rarely the whole answer. E-commerce was 16.9% of US retail in early 2026, which means roughly 83% of sales still happen on a physical floor. For most European brands the US is an omnichannel entry: a website that meets US buying habits and, depending on the category, wholesale, concessions or a flagship store. Online-only works for some digital-first niches, but treating the country as pure DTC because that is how the brand grew at home usually leaves most of the market on the table.
Why can a brand that wins in Europe still fail in the US?
Almost always because the home-market playbook was imported unchanged. Tesco opened more than 200 Fresh & Easy stores and exited in 2013 with losses around 1.6 billion dollars, undone largely by a store format and locations that did not fit how Americans shop. The US is not one market, it is a set of metros with their own formats, expectations and economics. What travels is the brand and the standards; what has to be rebuilt is the format, the assortment, the pricing presentation and the location, decided from the local shopper backward.
What is the single most underestimated cost of US entry?
Sales tax compliance, by a wide margin. A European team thinks in one VAT number; the US has over 12,000 tax jurisdictions, around 577 rate changes a year, and economic nexus rules that make you liable in a state the moment your sales there cross a threshold, with no physical presence required. The cost is rarely the tax itself, it is registering, collecting and filing across dozens of jurisdictions, and the penalty for getting it wrong is discovered late, in an audit, after a year of under-collection.
Can we use our European employment practices for the first US hires?
No, and assuming you can is where European orgs get hurt fastest. US employment is at-will in 49 states, with no notice periods or works councils, but it is not simpler: federal rules stack with state rules that differ sharply, worker classification and overtime are litigated aggressively, and benefits work nothing like home. Set up US payroll, build offers and policies to the relevant state, and handle work authorisation properly for anyone you relocate. Get the first five hires right rather than retrofitting after a claim.
Should we open a store, or start online?
It depends on the category and the metro, and the honest answer is that for most retail brands it is both, in sequence. Stand up a localised site and the entity, tax and fulfilment behind it first, because that is faster to launch and tells you which metros respond. Add the physical floor where the numbers and the brand call for it, sized and laid out for that specific street, not for the home format. The store and the site then have to run as one stock and one customer, which is the part that makes an omnichannel entry actually work.
Much of the first year you can run yourself. The entity, the tax registration and the first hires are work a good US lawyer and accountant will do with you, and you should line them up early.
Bring us in when the entry has to be omnichannel and actually open: a localised site, a floor sized for the metro, and the two joined into one stock and one customer, run by operators who have opened markets before and stay until the first metro holds. Then we copy the play to the next one.
Opening the US?
No deck, no gate. A working session on your real entry plan and your first metro, with the operators who would get it open.