ImportExport Kit For Dummies by John J. Capela

Author:John J. Capela
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Locating Customers for Your Imports

In This Chapter

Getting a research game plan

Finding trade directories and associations

Locating manufacturers’ agents to help you identify prospects and sell products

In this chapter, I outline an approach you can use to identify prospective customers in the local marketplace for the goods you’re importing. After you’ve identified the most promising markets and identified the strategies to enter them, the next step is to locate actual customers. If the customer is the end user of your product, you can have a simple transaction. If not, you may have to reach the eventual user through an agent or distributor.

Using Industry Distributor Directories

After you’ve identified your target market (see Chapter 8), you need to find lists of prospective customers for the items you’re importing. One of the quickest and easiest ways to do this is through industry trade directories. They’re usually compiled and published by various industry trade organizations and are available for a small fee.

So how do these directories work? Here’s an example: I had a client in Canada who manufactured white rolled paper sticks. He manufactured and marketed these sticks to health and beauty aid firms that manufactured cotton swabs. My client was looking for ways to expand his business and generate increased sales because the cotton swab market was very stable and the potential for growth was almost nonexistent.

My approach was to look at the product and see whether I could identify a new and different market for his product. After giving it some thought, I realized that those rolled white paper sticks are also used in the manufacture of lollipops. The task at hand was to identify lists of lollipop manufacturers and contact those manufacturers.

Using the Candy Buyers’ Directory, I was able to identify all the lollipop manufacturers in North America. This annual directory, a publication of the Manufacturing Confectioner Publishing Company (www.gomc.com), is a comprehensive reference source of candy, chocolate, confectionery, and cough drops companies in North America. It lists manufacturers, sellers, and importers of these items, including brand names and products.

Almost every industry or product category has a directory. In this section, I steer you toward distributor directories you can use no matter what product you’re importing.

Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources

When you’re looking for customers for your imports, one of the best resources available in the reference section of most public libraries is the Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources, published by Gale. This publication identifies print and electronic sources of information. The listings are arranged by subject and then by type of resource — directories, online databases, periodicals, newsletters, and trade and professional associations.

Using my candy manufacturer example from earlier in the chapter, I went to the library, asked the reference librarian for the Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources, opened it up to the candy industry section, went to the listing of directories, and noted the following:

Candy Buyers’ Directory. Manufacturing Confectioner Publishing Company. Annual. Lists confectionary and snack manufacturers by category and brand name.

You can do this for any industry.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.