Sunday 16 October 2016

Traders First Try At Importing Works Well


One of our traders in the top end made recently made a stock purchase as an importer and he recommends others do the same.

Our global economy has changed the nature of manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing forever and many traders have embraced direct supply from overseas.

The trader in this story had tried importing once before but had his fingers burned, firstly by an unscrupulous customs agent and secondly by product choices that were not ideal. He decided there were too many pitfalls. But he had run out of a key product in his range and the Australian supplier had fallen foul of the retail recession, deciding not to continue importing.

Our trader wrote to the manufacturer in the UK and laid out his case. He explained he was a small retailer and needed a cost effective price/freight structure to make the deal worthwhile but he was confident of placing regular orders.

Two day later our trader had a price and volume level that he could handle and a quote on airfreight that was manageable so he organised an overseas funds transfer with his bank and placed the order. Barely 5 days later a carton arrived at his local Post Office.

It turned out that the UK freight forwarder had a relationship with Australia Post and everything went smoothly. The cost of the goods was less than $1000 so there were no import complications although even if it had been more than $1000, the connection with Australia Post means filling out a few forms to get customs clearance. Traders may prefer to use a customs agent in those cases.

The good news for the trader was that the goods were landed for less than he had previously been paying and, even better, he sold 14 units on his first day with the new stock. No wonder he recommends other traders consider doing their own importing.