Most entry plans we are asked to review are not wrong about Albania. They are wrong about the questions nobody thought to ask before the budget was approved.
Addressable demand is not population
A market of 2.8 million people is not a market of 2.8 million customers. Household income is concentrated in a handful of urban centres, and purchasing patterns in Tirana look very little like those in the north or the south-east. Plans that divide a national figure by an adoption rate produce a number that feels defensible and forecasts nothing.
Build demand from the bottom instead: who buys this today, how often, at what price, and through which channel. A smaller number you can defend is worth more than a large one you cannot.
Your real competition may not file accounts
Registry data will show you the formal competitors. It will not show you the workshop that serves half the local demand without advertising, or the importer who competes on relationships rather than price. If your competitive analysis was built only from filings, it is missing the part of the market that will actually take your customers.
Field visits and supplier conversations close this gap faster than any desk study.
Find out who signs
Procurement in a family-owned business rarely follows the org chart. The person who evaluates your product and the person who decides to buy it are frequently different, and the second one may not appear in any meeting you have been invited to.
Ask early and directly how a decision of this size gets made, and who has to agree. It is a simple question that saves a quarter of wasted pipeline.
The plans that work here are the ones that treat local knowledge as research to be gathered, not as a detail to be handled after launch.