Not just get product on a shelf somewhere. We work on the things that actually determine whether an international expansion works: who holds the registrations, how distributors are structured, and whether pricing holds up across channels.
How We WorkPelagon derives from the Ancient Greek word πέλαγος, meaning the open sea. The name reflects our view of international expansion as navigation, not acceleration. In open water, judgment matters more than speed.
Personal care & beauty, health & wellness, and OTC across regulated international markets.
Latin America, MENA, and Asia. Complex regulatory environments and demanding retail.
Built-in data intelligence across market selection, distributor evaluation, and channel monitoring.
Los Angeles, California. Operating across international time zones and trade environments.
"The distributor who won the pitch is rarely the one who builds the market."
We work with export managers and commercial directors who have been through enough international launches to know that moving fast and moving smart are not the same thing.
All three are heavily regulated internationally, all three have real consequences for getting the distributor or registration wrong, and all three are categories where we have direct experience.
Skincare, haircare, color cosmetics, fragrance. These categories look straightforward until you're dealing with unauthorized resellers undercutting your pricing on Amazon.ae or a distributor who has listed your product in three channels you never approved.
Vitamins, supplements, sports nutrition, functional wellness. Regulatory classification varies significantly by market. What registers as a food supplement in one country may require a drug license in another. Getting this wrong is expensive and slow to fix.
Over-the-counter products, medicated personal care, cosmeceuticals. These sit at the boundary between consumer and pharmaceutical regulation. The main risk is a distributor holding your product registration, which means they effectively control your access to the market.
Most international expansions run into the same problems: entering the wrong market too early, picking a distributor based on a good presentation, letting someone else hold the product registration, or losing control of pricing before the brand has any real leverage.
We work on preventing those problems upfront. And fixing the underlying issues when brands come to us after the fact.
Figure out which markets are actually worth entering for your category. We use real data on pricing, competitive activity, and regulatory classification to build a shortlist that makes sense, not just one that looks good in a presentation.
Find distributors based on what they have actually done, not what they say they can do. Build agreements that keep the brand in control: registrations stay with you, pricing terms are enforceable, and there is a clear way out if the relationship stops working.
Stay on top of what is happening in the market without needing a full-time person on the ground. We monitor channel pricing, distributor activity, and marketplace listings so problems surface early, when they are still fixable.
Pelagon Partners is a small advisory firm based in Los Angeles. We work with U.S. consumer brands that are either entering international markets for the first time or trying to fix problems in markets they are already in.
The issues we focus on are not glamorous: who actually owns the product registration, whether the distributor agreement gives you any real leverage, whether pricing is holding up across channels. These are the things that determine whether an international business is worth having, and they are usually the things that get skipped when brands are moving fast.
We keep the client list small on purpose. The work takes time to do well, and we are not interested in taking on more than we can actually handle.
We use AI to get better information faster, on markets, on distributors, and on what is happening in the channel once a brand is live. It does not replace judgment, but it makes the judgment better.
Before we recommend a market, we run data analysis on pricing, competitive activity, and how similar products are currently selling in that market. Before we recommend a distributor, we look at their actual track record, not just their pitch deck.
Once a brand is in market, we monitor pricing and channel activity on an ongoing basis. When something goes wrong with unauthorized listings, pricing leakage, or a distributor going quiet, we catch it early rather than finding out six months later on a quarterly call.
Before recommending a market, we pull real data on how the category is performing there, what the competitive set looks like, and whether the regulatory path is realistic for your product. It takes days instead of weeks and it is more current than anything that comes out of a traditional research report.
We look at what a distributor has actually done: which brands they carry, how those brands are showing up in the market, what their retail footprint looks like. A distributor who looks great in a meeting can look very different when you look at the data.
We track pricing and listings across online and offline channels in your active markets. If your product starts showing up somewhere it should not, or if pricing starts slipping, we see it quickly, before it becomes a bigger problem.
These are not principles we put on a slide. They are the things we push back on when clients want to skip them.
Product registrations need to be held by the brand, not the distributor. If the distributor holds your registration and the relationship goes bad, they control your access to that market. We have seen this go wrong enough times that we will not move forward without getting this right.
Pricing discipline needs to be established before the first shipment. Once a product is in market at the wrong price, it is very hard to pull back. Retailers resist it, distributors resist it, and the brand usually ends up absorbing the cost.
Distributor agreements need to include real termination rights, including the ability to take back registrations, customer relationships, and market access. A contract that has no real exit is not a contract, it is a trap.
A distributor who gives a great presentation is not the same as a distributor who will actually build the market. We pick based on what they have done, not what they say they will do.
Entering five markets simultaneously sounds like momentum. It usually means doing all five badly. We push clients to go deep in fewer markets and expand once the model is actually working.
We work with a small number of clients at any time. That is not a positioning statement. It is how we make sure the work is actually good. We would rather turn down business than take on more than we can handle well.
The Pelagon team has backgrounds in international CPG trade, regulatory work across personal care and health categories, government relations, and global finance. The common thread is that we have worked inside these markets, not just studied them or consulted on them from the outside.
We have negotiated the distributor agreements, dealt with the registration disputes, and managed the situations where a market that looked great in a deck turned out to be much harder in practice. That experience is what we bring to every client engagement.
We focus on markets where distribution is complex, regulatory requirements are real, and the consequences of a bad partner selection are significant. These are not easy markets, which is exactly why having experience in them matters.
Every country has its own registration process, its own retail structure, and its own way of doing things. LATAM rewards patience and punishes brands that try to move too fast across too many markets at once. We have experience across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Central America in personal care, health, and OTC categories.
Strong consumer demand, high purchasing power in the GCC, and distributors who know it. Pricing control and registration ownership are the two things that separate a good business from a bad one in this region. Our experience covers the GCC markets, Egypt, and selected North Africa markets.
High potential, high complexity, and real consequences for getting the initial entry wrong. We focus on controlled, well-structured entry for personal care and health categories in particular, where the cost of fixing a poorly structured first entry is measured in years, not months.
For personal care, health, and OTC categories, regulatory approval is not a formality. It determines whether your product can be sold, how it has to be labeled, and who controls the registration. These are the bodies we work with and around on every engagement.
Latin America is not one market. Every country has its own regulatory framework, and navigating them requires country-specific knowledge. COFEPRIS in Mexico is one of the more demanding examples: registration timelines are real, classification disputes are common, and distributor-held registrations are one of the most frequent problems we inherit. The same pattern plays out differently in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Peru. Different bodies, different timelines, same underlying risk if the entry is not structured properly.
The UAE sits at the center of MENA distribution for personal care and health products. The Emirates Authority for Standardization and the Ministry of Health both play a role depending on product classification. Getting this right upfront is what separates a smooth entry from a customs hold that derails your launch timeline.
The National Medical Products Administration governs cosmetics, health foods, and OTC drugs in China. Registration timelines are long, documentation requirements are extensive, and the consequences of getting product classification wrong are severe. Most brands underestimate what a China entry actually requires until they are already in it.
Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration and Health Canada both operate rigorous pre-market frameworks for health and OTC products. These are often treated as straightforward markets by U.S. brands. They are not. Both require specific registration pathways and labeling compliance that need to be planned well in advance.
Regulatory requirements change. The above reflects our working knowledge as of early 2026. We verify current requirements on every engagement before making any recommendations.
Tell us about your situation and we will follow up if there is a fit.