The Market Diversification Tool
Discover New Export Opportunities with the Market Diversification Tool
Whether you export goods or plan to start, the Market Diversification Tool can help you identify and compare potential export markets. This powerful tool is designed to assist both seasoned exporters and newcomers in identifying and comparing potential export markets.
The Market Diversification Tool scores and ranks potential export markets using the inputs you provide and your business criteria, including the products you export or plan to; if you are already exporting, your current export markets; and the markets you want to compare in the results.
The tool calculates an overall score for each market that will be between 0 and 100 and ranks the markets by the scores. By combining data from multiple indicators, it provides a clear, actionable starting point for your export strategy.
About the Market Diversification Tool:
- Based on Your Inputs: It uses your company’s current trade patterns and inputs to make recommendations on markets you may want to consider. If you are already exporting, it will compare potential new markets to your current export markets. And the tool only compares the markets you choose to see in the results.
- Your Research Starting Point: Designed as a launching pad for your market research, the tool is intended to be a starting point for market research, so you can narrow your focus and explore other resources from the International Trade Administration.
- Highly Flexible: Whether you want to conduct a quick global search or customize your results to specific regions and preferences, the tool allows you to adjust the search to fit your company’s unique needs by focusing on specific regions or adjusting the indicator weights.
Recommended Next Steps
The Market Diversification Tool is meant as a starting point for your market research process. It does not provide a complete picture of a country’s market potential for your product.
Once you have your results, we encourage you to explore additional resources. Guidance on suggested next steps can be found in the results section of the tool. Look for the button that looks like a compass. You can use the tabs at the top of the page to move between different categories of resources, including other resources from the International Trade Administration, guidance on better understanding the results of your search, and resources for more detailed trade and tariff data.
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Market Diversification Tool: Upgraded Features and Enhancements
Originally launched in 2018, the Market Diversification Tool received its first major upgrade in 2024. We’ve upgraded the platform and expanded its functionality to enhance your user experience. The upgrade allows not just current exporters to identify new markets, but it also helps new exporters identify potential markets.
Notable improvements to the updated tool include:
- Ability to be Used by Both New and Current Exporters: Previously, the tool could only be used by current exporters. We’ve added an option for people looking to find their very first export market.
There are three differences between the two options:
- Weights: Weights determine how much each indicator contributes to the overall score. There are separate sets of default or standard weights for new and current exporters. We have adjusted the default weights for new exporters to put additional emphasis on factors that make a country “friendlier” to new exporters, such as logistics performance and regulatory quality.
- Tariff Comparison: For current exporters, the tool compares tariffs in new markets to the tariffs you already face in your current export markets. For new exporters, all tariffs are compared to a baseline of 0%.
- Shared Language: For new exporters, rather than comparing the official language of potential markets to the official languages of your current export markets, the tool uses just English as the shared language.
- Data visualizations: The updated platform introduces interactive visuals, making it easier to compare markets. You now have an array of interactive visuals at your fingertips, allowing you to quickly and easily compare markets. You can export your results as a printable report, and you can download the data from any visual.
- Additional Contextual Data: The tool now provides additional data not included in the calculations. It shows you data for the top three exporters of the selected products to the potential market, in addition to the U.S. It also shows where the U.S. ranks as an exporter to the market and includes gross domestic product (GDP) and population data.
- Indicator Changes: Since the creation of the original Market Diversification Tool, the availability of some of the data in the original tool has changed. In 2021 the World Bank paused its Doing Business Survey, which provided the Cost to Import and Contract Enforcement measures in the original tool. Therefore, these indicators are not present in the updated version of the tool.
We have also replaced the Rule of Law indicator with the Regulatory Quality Index, also from the World Bank, which measures the perceived ability of a national government to write, implement, and enforce sound policies that support private industry.
ITA Research Resources
