Business in Argentina

Hi all. Does anyone have experience doing business with Argentina?
Anything unusual or special to know? Looking at Mexico, South
America, etc and just starting out here, so any tips to keep in mind
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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Geee.... How Come?

Folks,

The Friday, Aug 2 Wall Street Journal on page B6 has an article on Nike's
defense of a false advertising claim. The plaintiff claims Nike lied when it
said it was not exploiting Vietnamese workers.

Nike has been pulling out of Indonesia due to political instability there
(the managers and merchants tend to be of Chinese ancestry in SE Asia, and
instability means they suffer greatly).

The article mentions Nike is expanding in Thailand, where "most
interestingly...the wage is nearly twice what it is in Indonesia..."

Well, duh! Wages are not a factor in international trade. But you knew
that, since you are better informed than Wall Street Journal reporters.

John

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Re: Export Lewis Clark

In a message dated 8/10/02 12:13:00 PM, malcolmd@moscow.com writes:

<<

Thanks for the discussion and feedback. I think you have prevented me from

traveling down a dead end. Upon further questioning, it turns out these are

just random trade leads that come into the state (as they do in every state)

and, yes, I think you are right, not necessarily useful, in fact, not even

that specific to Lewis Clark. I will meet with them, just to see what they

have to say, and find out more about what services they might offer to

exporters (I understand that most states offer this kind of "assistance" to

in-state businesses), and for my own education. I am optimistic that some

opportunity or insight may arise from the discussion.


As for competition in souvenirs, its already there. Fortunately we started

the business at a time when demand for Lewis Clark products exceeded supply,

and have developed a loyal circuit of retail customers. Most of them now get

two phone calls a week from small businesses selling new LC products.

Fortunately, we represent many proprietary lines in a wide variety of

categories, souvenirs are just one "line." And trust is a big factor in

dealing with retailers, something we have earned with old fashioned elbow

grease. I would not recommend that someone get into this chase right now,

things are fast becoming glutted. However, we ARE looking for Lewis Clark

private label product lines to represent in certain niche categories -- if

someone works with specific types of products and wants to email me off

list: lewisclark@idaho.net we would welcome inquires. Please understand, we

are not distributors, just commission reps. So we would not be buying, just

selling on your behalf for a commission, in an exclusive territory.


Thanks again John, for the interesting discussion!


Malcolm

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Detail on Finding Buyers (new thread)

Re: [spiers] Detail on Finding Buyers (new thread)


In a message dated 8/12/02 11:09:07 AM, malcolmd@moscow.com writes:

<< I would like more micro detail on finding buyers for imported products.

We currently sell gift and souvenir products to about 300 independent gift
retailers of various descriptions. Finding a line that will sell in enough
volume to justify a container load (or fractional) seems on the surface to
be a daunting task.

***Stop thinking of volume and start thinking of minimum production run... at
the small biz level it is the frequency where the money nis made, not
volume.***

First, gift retailers are very provincial on a "state"
basis. As soon as you try to sell a product made in another state, sales are
cut in fourths. Your best opportunity is with something they cannot find
in-state (not that hard, fortunately.) Second, every gift retailer wants
something different. If Betty (most of these store owners are women) down
the street carries that line, then "I don't want it." While this creates
opportunities for new, competing lines, it also reduces the opportunity to
get serious volumes of just about anything. (Also please understand we work
in the rural northern Rockies and east of the Cascade mountains (interior
Northwest US) where the BIG city has 30,000 +/- people).

***All true, but stop thinking of vvolume...***

I understand that finding an unmet need, and selling based on "design" is
necessary, we do that all the time. But what kind of minimum volumes would
we need to make importing viable?

***Well importing should yield about $250/hours... but my guess is you are
trying to be and importer and asles rep, an almost impossible task... I think
you have to pick one...as to minimum production runs, say $5000 is normal...
***

I can see where we could get samples, go
around and take orders, noting delivery some weeks or months hence. But
seeing that most of these are one-store businesses, most are located in
smaller towns (low to modest volumes), and the fact that its tough to sell a
line to more than one store in a town, and most of the stores will not be
interested in a particular line, what are the options? What is an economic
minimum production quantity, say in your specialty of glassware, John? What
volume of orders would you need before you would work your magic with a
foreign manufacturer? How much work would it be to aggregate different lines
from a foreign country (assuming I could pre-sell a range of products) to
make a container (or fractional) container load?

***the only question is can you gain enough orders from usa customers to
cover the supplier's minimum production run in a workable amount of time,
profitably...everything else flows from that..***

Distributors are not a dominant force in the gift industry, at least not in
Idaho and eastern Oregon. So finding a volume buyer is like locating a
four-leaf clover. For retail chains, most of the purchasing is
centralized... in Seattle, Portland, Denver, etc and we do not circulate, or
have contacts in those networks. We could develop those of course, but we
would prefer to take advantage of the buying power we already work with. We
travel a lot to make a living in this part of the world, ... more travel is
not our preference.

***Again seems like you are doing two professions..import and sales
repping.***

Not sure if I am making my question clear. Even though we work with hundreds
of buyers (and a database of nearly 2000), the size of buyers we work with
makes "finding a buyer" in economic volumes, a challenge. Suggestions?
Concerns? What strategy would you use for importing, if your biggest asset
was access to a wealth of micro-buyers?

First I'd start with products In was passionate about, and then I would see
if I could gain enough orders from usa customers to cover the supplier's
minimum production run in a workable amount of time, profitably... then
repeat ad infinitem..that is all there is to it.***

John

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