To Start Import Export Business Internationally trade is one of the hot opportunities of the new millennium. But it’s not new. Think Marco Polo. Think the great caravans of the biblical age with their cargoes of silks and spices. Think even further back to prehistoric man trading shells and salt with distant tribes. Trade exists because one group or country has a supply of some commodity or merchandise that is in demand by another. And as the world becomes more and more technologically advanced, as we shift in subtle and not so subtle ways toward one-world modes of thought, international trade becomes more and more rewarding, both in terms of profit and personal satisfaction.
To Start Import Export Business is not just for those lone footloose adventurer types who survive by their wits and the skin of their teeth. It’s big business these days–to the tune of an annual $1.2 trillion in goods, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Exporting is just as big. In one year alone, American companies exported $772 billion in merchandise to more than 150 foreign countries. Everything from beverages to commodes–and a staggering list of other products you might never imagine as global merchandise–are fair game for the savvy trader. And these products are bought, sold, represented and distributed somewhere in the world on a daily basis.
First off, let’s take a look at the players. While you’ve Start Import Export Business, there are many variations on the main theme;
Export management company (EMC): An EMC handles export operations for a domestic company that wants to sell its product overseas. The EMC does it all — hiring dealers, invoicing customers, distributors and representatives; handling advertising, marketing and promotions; overseeing marking and packaging; arranging shipping; and sometimes arranging financing or contracting
Import export merchant: This international entrepreneur is a sort of free agent. He has no specific client base, and he doesn’t specialize in any one industry or line of products. Instead, he purchases goods directly from a domestic or foreign manufacturer and then packs, ships and resells the goods on his own.
Export trading company (ETC): While an EMC has merchandise to sell and is using its energies to seek out buyers, an ETC attacks the other side of the trading coin. It identifies what foreign buyers want to spend their money on and then hunts down domestic sources willing to export. An ETC sometimes takes title to the goods and sometimes works on a commission basis.
Now that you’re familiar with the players, you’ll need to take a swim in the trade channel, the means by which the merchandise travels from manufacturer to end user. A manufacturer who uses a middleman who resells to the consumer is paddling around in a three-level channel of distribution. The middleman can be a merchant who purchases the goods and then resells them, or he can be an agent who acts as a broker but doesn’t take title to the stuff.
Every business needs consumers for its products and services to, as the Vulcans so eloquently put it, live long and prosper. Now that you know How to Start Import Export Business or run entails, you need to plan, or target, your market, and determine who your potential clients will be, which geographic areas you’ll draw from, and what specific products or services you’ll offer to draw them
This is a very important phase in the mega-trader building project. The proper market research can help boost your trading company into a true profit centre, and the more research you do, the better prepared you are before you officially open your doors, the less floundering you’re likely to do.
