Re: customers broker / freight forwarder

customers broker / freight forwarder

Thanks for your advise. Actually, I am not hosting the booth, I am just
helping a manufacturer from India to set up his booth. He is actually the
one footing the bill here.

***Very good... at a tremendous expense to himself...***

I am just helping him with freight logistics, and
reviewing photos of his merchandise to help him pick out material I think
will sell for him. He will sell off the booth merchandise so there won't be
any problem with storage at the end.

***If that particular show permits selling of samples... has anyone checked?***

Also, he is looking for a company that will rent display shelves, etc for
his booth as he will fly directly from India to Charlotte for the show (the
Super Floral Show) and display equipment is too expensive to airfreight. He
claims that when he has gone to gift shows in Frankfurt that they have
companies that actually do this sort of thing.

***Yes, all shows offer display for rent, so call the show organizers and get
the catalog and price lists for show display goodies...***

However, he does want me to act as his U.S. liason, for which I am a little
skeptical. I worked with this source at my last job where I was a buyer /
importer and he had a problem with shipping the orders on time and some
items came in not like the approved samples and also damaged--course, they
were huge orders, so there were problems with production on his end, I
think. It makes me nervous, there could be a major liability/logistics
problem which I don't want. Any advise for me on this? It could prove to be
very lucrative in the end, though, so it is hard to say no.

***Well, right... first you would be working for him in USA... rather teh worst
of all possible worlds... on the one hand, since you are in USA, and acting
effectively as his agent, you would hold all liability for his decisions,
mistakes, etc... and he being overseas, you'd have no recourse if anything went
wrong.

Second, the very idea that someone in India or anywhere else overseas is
competent in marketiing in USA is too much to hope for. With this offer, you
get to work very much with no assurance of payoff, very high liability, and
working for someone who probably does not know what he is doing. I'd pass on
this.

On the other hand, pick a field you love, you'll find plenty of first rate
suppliers happy to follow your lead on what works for USA...

At very best, sign NOTHING on this persons behalf... agree on a retainer for the
week paid in advance (say $2500) ... be his go-fer during the show so you can
learn this end of it... and keep working on your own thing...

John

Bookmark this post --- Email this post