hey everyone
This is my 1st post, and am looking for some advice from seasoned members.
I currently reside in the USA and am originally from the UK, so have family in London. I have often thought that this would bring about oppurtunity of an import/export business. I have got some good ideas of products that are available in the US and are either hard to find or not available in the UK.
How does one go about any initial negotiations with a potential supplier in the US, trying to agree on specific price points. Is it better to hold inventory yourself, or wait until you have a buyer for the product. My area of expertise in in construction as I have been in the industry for 25 years. I would be willing to undertake a mentor/protoge relationship if anyone has the time. It may be profitablable for both parties.
Charles
Quoting from [brickw]:hey everyone
This is my 1st post, and am looking for some advice from seasoned members.
I currently reside in the USA and am originally from the UK, so have family in London. I have often thought that this would bring about oppurtunity of an import/export business. I have got some good ideas of products that are available in the US and are either hard to find or not available in the UK.
How does one go about any initial negotiations with a potential supplier in the US, trying to agree on specific price points. Is it better to hold inventory yourself, or wait until you have a buyer for the product. My area of expertise in in construction as I have been in the industry for 25 years. I would be willing to undertake a mentor/protoge relationship if anyone has the time. It may be profitablable for both parties.
Charles
We have to understand what we want from our business, selling direct to the retail market as you know you need to have products ready to send, people don't want to wait for long times to get their goods, some people offer drop shipping but this can have problems too, payments and time scales, communication to many placess to arrange goods, but the most important facts are the quality issues. With drop shipping you can not check your goods and know whats inside the boxes, so many customers would have faults and you can not be sure who is to blame, because you dont have the control.
When you sell to the trade, i mean in multiples of products, maybe distributors or agents, shops, supermarkets these business can understand that you would make products direct for them, to their requirements and would wait for their orders, thus giving you the time to make the orders and get desposits to start the production, your profits would not be the same as retail but the output would be much higher.
Getting trade business is not easy, so you need to have your products set out well, samples to show your clients, documents to show clients of the product specs, web site that has all details for your products and contacts, certification for the products for the exported country!! product rights!! or you can just give your idea's away to the big boys!!
Customer service is paramount for you to deal with any major company, so you need your business to address this matter, and have answers ready for their questions.
Last thing, would be to find your right company name and brand name for your product!! unless your use the the factories name, you can reg the names easy in UK for worldwide use if needed, can take 12mths to complete.
Hope this helps, John