Zepol.com, Importgenius.com, PIERS, & Panjiva.com

The US government collects massive amounts of information on who is importing and exporting what, when, where, at what price, and more. The information is collected at various points by various agencies, and ends up in various databases.  Almost all of it is available, one way or another, to you.

A common desire motivating access to this information is competition.  Having all this granular information is believed to be some sort of advantage.

I agree, when it comes to what is being imported or exported, we’d like to know by HTS number, the info at what prices.  This information is for sale from the United States Department of Commerce, and free of charge from the USITC.com  I teach how to use this information competitively in my classes and in my book.  And I will gladly offer it as a .pdf for free to any who ask.  Just email me.

There are two sources of this information, one is the steamship line manifests, which is a summary of all of the bills of lading on a vessel.  Another is the customs declaration, form 7501 (along with what is gleaned on the mail and passenger declarations, if ever specified.)

Let me tell you, you ain’t getting names named from the form 7501.  Or its export version.  Not gonna happen.  But from the steamship line manifests, yes. Customs information names names, who is importing or exporting what from where, from steamship line manifests.  The information is for sale from the government, after dislodgment by a freedom of information act request, and is normally accessed through 2nd party resellers, such as PIERS, importgenius.com and Zepol.com, panjiva.com, who access it under the legal fiction that they are news media.

Before I begin, let me say again, what I always say, and is a fundamental concept to success in international trade: you should not care who happens to be your competitor’s suppliers and customers.  I’ll take this a step farther, if you are seeking information on your competitor’s suppliers or customers, you will most certainly lose.  You will certainly lose the time and effort  and money you put into discovering such trivia.  You will mostly likely lose exponentially as you pursue a business that is not yours instead of pursuing the business that is yours.

AS to the question what is YOUR business, I answer that elsewhere and in my classes.

I do recommend using international trade data, in the manner I lay out in my book and classes.  The data is from the form 7501, and does NOT name names.  The sites I am reviewing here sell information regarding specific suppliers overseas and specific importers in USA.  These sites name names, and they are reselling steamship line manifest data.

What these three offer is too much information for a start-up, and irrelevant. What NTDB info I refer to as essential to business start up is right now free of charge in any case, and that is the info I guide people through in business start up.

So why am I reviewing these sites?  Because there may be another business for you, where these people who sell government data miss an opportunity.  Also, it’s my duty to point out to the state where they can make money better than they do now, for the people.

You may believe that by knowing a competitor’s source, you may find a way to start a business.  Perhaps you believe that you can find out what an importer is paying whom for what, and then offer that importer’s customers a better deal.   You replace the importer by either being the preferred supplier to the customer with the same supplier, or with a different supplier.  Or you may have some other scenario in mind.

In competitive running, coaches drill into runners’ heads “do not look at the competition!”  If you turn your head for a split second all sorts of bad things can happen.  So it is with business start up.

No matter what your idea is as to how this data will help you, you are wrong.  Do not take my word for it, test out your idea.  Before you take the time, effort and money it takes to use these services, approach the target customer and test your hypothesis:  “If I can get the product you are buying from your present importer/supplier for (less money, better supplier, same supplier cheaper, better quality, better service, I’m a good guy... whatever) would you buy from me?”  They will tell you no, and why they will not, and why, you having made such a suggestion, they would never work with you now, or ever.  Then you will know.  Give it a try.

But there I am helping you out with different problem, so let’s get back to the point of this post. What your business ought to be I explain elsewhere.  But for now, I’ll compare importgenius.com, PIERS and and Zepol.com.  And comment on the sui generis panjiva.com.

All three will give you a free trial, so you can judge for yourself, as will panjiva.com.

PIERS is the grandaddy of the trade info systems.  They own the huge established customer base of big business, ports and so on.  They charge too much to do too much.   I reviewed PIERS here obliquely.

Importgenius I have reviewed here and here, and do not have much to add.

If I were to buy any of these services,  I would buy it from Zepol.com.  They seem to have info laid out in ways that are easiest to work with, and more comprehensive.

Update: Here is a new one, in beta, currently no charge...  http://www.tradetracing.com/

Here is how all three get their raw data.  The go to customs and pay $100 per day of information.  Customs works about 252 days per year, so the raw data from US Customs costs them $100 per working day 252 or $25,200 per year. Zepol’s website tells us they have 1300 clients paying on average (the most popular) $6000 per year.  This generates $7,800,000 on info the info they sell, rough calculation.  So the raw data is $25,200 to Uncle Sam and the gross income is $7.8 million to Zepol.  Nice!

You can buy the info from Customs at $100 per day also, or  roughly $2200 per month.  Nothing special or secret, anyone can do it.   Zepol will sell it to you, all prettified in a lite version for about $250 per month, pro version $500 per month and enterprise version $833 per month.   Either way, at those prices it is better for you to go to Zepol than US Customs.  (If you want the info, I say you are delusional if you are seeking it.)

(Update 1/23/2015...  that link to customs went bad, but customs has no control over the GPO, which also tells you how to buy the info.... http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2009-title19-vol1/pdf/CFR-2009-title19-vol1-sec103-31.pdf   more here:  http://hbhblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/buying-names-of-importers-and-exporter.html)

By being a “publisher” selling to many people, they can sell it to you cheaper than you can get it yourself.

Now in a category by itself is Panjiva.com.  The biggest objection I can make is folks, “actionable” means lawsuit-ready.  Jeff, when you say Panjiva’s data is actionable, dude, you mean “lawsuits ahead.”    Panjiva, have someone above the level of unpaid intern proofread your websites!  Sheeesh...

And if that is my strongest criticism, then I guess that means this site is pretty good.  It is different, as afar as I can tell it is sui generis, since it is not using govt data at all.  It is repackaging first rate sources of info and selling it at I think fair prices, not that my opinion matters.  The only opinion that matters is that of their customers, and I am not one.  But check them out.

http://panjiva.com/why-panjiva/multiple-data-sources

http://panjiva.com/for-buyers/how-we-help

http://panjiva.com/for-buyers/benefits

I can see how their clients, big businesses, would like this candy store of world trade insights.  But we at the small business can’t use it... we can’t afford the info, and again, it is too much info, and the wrong info.  What sources panjiva.com resells we can go to directly and get for free anyway, our tiny slice of information.  If anyone at Panjiva.com reads this, I’d say don’t go after the small biz market, you’d be wasting your investor’s money.

On the other hand, if any of my devoted readers were to act on any of the business recommendations below, I’d say see Panjiva.com first about buying and reselling your service (as I suggest below.)

Now, back to the first three, and here is the part someone has not thought through:  You already paid for this information.  It is government information.  Your taxes paid for it.  Who in USCustoms decided to sell to you what you already own?

I don’t mind people making money off data, but I do mind if I already paid for it, and I cannot have it at no further charge.  In other words, since I have paid for it already, I should not pay for access to the same raw data.  I need the information for my own business, and my students need access to it too.  Sending me off to these three resellers will not work because they charge too much to do much, and do not offer what we are looking for anyway.

What zepol, et al, offers is the prettified display and easy access.  Let them charge for that, but USCustoms should not make me buy what I already own.

So what to do?  US Customs ought to change to another revenue model.  Since the state loves intellectual property rights, it should charge a royalty to resellers of the info on behalf of the people of the United States, who already paid for the info and “own” it.  Say Customs makes the steamship line manifest raw data free online, as does the USITC for other 7501, etc, world trade data, but required, on the part of the taxpayers, to charge a royalty for those who resell the info.  Say 3% royalty.

Right now Zepol pays about $25,200 per year and grosses, calculating from the figures they offer on their website, about $7,800,000.  3% of $7,800,000 is $234,000.  Now with that gross, Zepol certainly could pay that royalty.  And customs would be bringing in ten times as much revenue from Zepol alone.  And if anyone resells without paying the royalty, let Customs raid them, not Swap Meet Louie.

As it is now, I who use the info for academic purposes and to promote trade, cannot access it at the costs customs charges.  Nor can I with the resellers. So customs is actually inhibiting trade, and hurting their “business” (and I might add, therefore, in contradiction to their mission to “protect the revenue of the United States”).  

Customs is inhibiting trade because by charging so much I cannot get access to the info with out paying too much for info from Zepol.com, Importgenius.com or PIERS.

I want wee bits of insight, like which customsbrokers are handling which commodities.  What are the common markups in a given industry.  That stuff.  It's in the extrapolated data, but the three resellers don't know it, because they do not know the source documents and trade practices as well as I do.  I could care less who else is importing what from whom for whom. 

And then, when the data is clearly wrong, such as when PIERS data reports told me there are no importers in USA bringing in wool sweaters from China, or  Briggs & Stratton (lawnmower company) has imported 734 metric tonnes of beer from China.  Say what?

So we have the strange circumstance wherein 3 companies at least are selling what nobody needs (except the delusional), no one is selling what is needed, Customs makes cost prohibitive information that people do need.

And then, there may be faster simpler ways of getting your information.  Say you see a garment with a RN number on it.   If it has one, any name on it is distributing garments they got from an OEM, and to find the name of the OEM, simply plug in the RN number here.  Bingo, you got your OEM.

Or canada here.    http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/h_02575.html?OpenDocument

There are other ways of finding other information, but that is enough for now.

So...  my recommendations...

1. US Customs needs to change its revenue model on data.  They would get more money and not inhibit new importers.

2. On a royalty basis, someone could start a business making prolly $200,000 per year paying USCustoms $6000 per year (3% royalty) prettifying reports on which customsbrokers have expertise in what fields, and what markups are running.  A nice small business.  Sell your info to panjiva.com.

3.  Somebody has to start a business that sorts out raw customs data that is clearly dead wrong (there are no importers in USA bringing in wool sweaters from China, or  Briggs & Stratton (lawnmower company) has imported 734 metric tonnes of beer from China. )    Customs or the USITC will sort it out for free if you can find someone to do it, but that is unlikely. Now this could be a side job for a government worker, could be a retired position, or this could be a job for some hot shot researcher, I don’t know.  But again, on a royalty basis, this person would just be forking over 3% of billings to USCustoms, no matter what the gross is.  Here again, sell your info to panjiva.com.

So you can wade through all of that and figure out if there is a business in there for you.

Update, someone new... http://www.eximgenius.com/

Update:  See here...

Update:

There is one orientation to business that is diametrically opposed to another: competing on price vs competing on design.

Companies that compete on price want to steal business from other businesses, so they want to learn about competitors sources and customers, so they can steal those by competing on price.  I have zero interest in helping those businesses, not because I care one way or another, only because I limit my work to those businesses competing on design.

So the info is useless to you if you compete on price.

If you compete on design, then the trade info is golden, but it is no cost from the source...

Oct 27 2015 update:

Zepol has been acquired -

"Both organizations are ranked among the top trade data providers in the highly competitive US market and are groundbreaking innovators in database access, research and analysis technologies," McCahill says. "Together, our combined assets make us an industry powerhouse and advance our goal of being the world's largest provider of global commercial trade information." 

Fine, if you want to look back and hope to cannibalize...  I teach how to find new business.

Update: In the upper right of this page are links to opportunities to study int'l trade start-up, competing on design and finding customers, with John Spiers.   In the upper left you'll find a link to a book on the topic written by John Spiers.

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