Introduction In our increasingly global society, many companies cannot afford to live under the illusion that their home markets will always be strong. Therefore, companies choose to market abroad as well. This then makes the international marketer's task more complicated as they now face two levels of uncontrollable uncertainty instead of just one. In addition to the uncontrollable elements of the home environment, it must also deal with the uncontrollable factors unique to each foreign country. Although the research process and methods are essentially the same whether applied in Johannesburg, Mozambique or the Transkei, international market research involves two additional complications: 1. Information will need to be communicated across cultural boundaries.2. The environments in which search tools are applied are often different in foreign markets. We can divide our required research into 3 areas: • General – covering the country, area, market • Information regarding future forecasts anticipated through economic, consumer, industry trends within particular markets/countries. • Precise market information to develop product, promotion, distribution or pricing decisions. A broad scope is needed for foreign research, due to the higher levels of uncertainty associated with it. Political stability, cultural attributes and geographical characteristics of a country are not ordinary information collected for the domestic market, but are essential for a sound evaluation of foreign markets. Below are some complications that require thorough investigation and understanding. so as to increase trade on foreign markets, instead of unintentionally decreasing demand. Secondary data In many countries, extensive research and data collection have been conducted for many years already, such as America, Japan. Unfortunately there are just as many countries that have only recently started collecting data. Organizations such as the United Nations and other public/private groups fund information gathering to compensate for the lack of inclusive data. Even with the large amount of data collected, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is its availability to other countries. Detailed data such as the number of wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, facilitation services are not available for many parts of the world. Population and income data are also mostly unavailable. If necessary, marketers should initiate their own research or rely on private sources. Even when data is available, the researcher must be fluent in the language in which it is provided or have a native speaker of the appropriate language on the team. Our next concern related to the available data, how reliable is it? Official statistics are sometimes too optimistic or unreliable in reporting relevant economic data regarding their respective countries.