Import and Export

The import and export business has been around since time immemorial. As far back as ancient Mesopotamia and countries in the Far East as well as the more nebulous notions of trade that existed in what is today the United States and Central America, import and export has been the very life blood of civilization.

Today import and export spans the complete spectrum of commerce, from local to domestic trade all the way on to international exchange. Whether it is by boat or plain or cargo ship, the world has been made much smaller and developing countries have been able to accelerate there pace in their efforts to join the world leaders in commerce and technology.

Once upon a time the struggle as I was explaining before, was to find more places in which to establish trade and then, once relationships have been developed, to make the process of import and export more efficient. That has been the story of history. It not only was what laid the foundations of the world economy but has inspired creativity and ingenuity and these things is the subject of this article.

I have been doing business ever since I dropped out of college. I run a rather successful import and export business and have more than thirty five people in my employ. The reason why this is important is because a client of mine did something recently that transformed the way we used to do business and has made him able t do a lot more business. I will digress for a moment.

The way the import and export business works in terms of billing is generally speaking, by weight and size, (weight being more significant.) it therefore becomes the goal of every business that is engaged in import and export to find ways of decreasing the weight of their products as well as the size of the said products, assuming that is does not compromise their integrity. After having said this I will return to the point at issue.

This client of mind runs a web site for mannequins and dress forms. For a number of years he used to import fiberglass mannequins. Recently he switched over to plastic mannequins. I have taken the time to write this article because what this simple switch has done for his business is astonishing. It accomplished two things. One the one had his import costs dropped significantly and on the other, he was able to undercut the market because plastic mannequins are far cheaper to produce and he was therefore able to offer them to his clients at a reduced rate. This has the very pleasant effect (for him not his competitors) of initiating a domino reaction. He was selling for cheap and word got around.

I obviously can't give you the details on how drastically his business improved but what I will say, and trust me on this, if there is any way you can switch over the materials of what you are importing to lighter materials the opportunities are boundless. You might not think that such a small change is not worth the hassle but the amount of cumulative savings will enable you and your business to do things with their products that were never before imagined.

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