The essence of small business international trade is the exploitation of excess production capacity. The key is tapping the management thereof, worldwide, to produce the item for which you have found customers most economically. You and the owner of those means of production agree on a minimum required to get started... enough orders from customers to cover the supplier's minimum order requirement, in a workable amount of time, profitably.
The enemy of this process is perfection. Look at the first Apple computer.
Not perfect, but a start. And each new production run, to this day, incorporates improvements based on the feedback from the market of the last production run.
With this in mind, you see it does not take much to get started, only enough orders from the market to cover the supplier's minimum in a workable amount of time, profitably. If you try to design for more than that, you are likely to waste your time and resources. If you design only for that, then you can finance this thing yourself.
Now as to MOQ FOB, which is a tactic for a viable company (post start-up) you are in a process of "search and learn" new markets.
Here you too offer a minimum, the smallest order you can rationally sell, as opposed to the largest order you can get. The killer here is "samples" and especially "free samples."
If you offer samples for potential customers to try, you will certainly attract people who enjoy a free sample. With free samples, you'll send out 100 before you get an order. If you pay the fedex to the potential "customer" you'll send out 1000. But you won't last that long, at say $75 a pop for fedex, 1000 free samples is $75,000 out of pocket. People who give free samples quite before that.
So what is the tactic? No free samples. In fact, no samples, free or otherwise. A real buyer is testing the product. Don't listen to nonsense about "flavor profile" or quality review, your product has passed USA market-proofing. You are selling a proven product into a foreign market. The real buyers want a minimum order quantity to test on their real customers. What some person inside the company has to say has no relation to what their customers might think or feel.
If you offer no free samples, will you lose orders? Perhaps... but with a no free samples/ no samples policy you position yourself to fail only if you quit...
In this way you can go the distance, your only inquiries will be real business. If you are an owner of the means of production, you can continue domestically while allowing solid export biz to develop. If you are acting only as an agent, you can serve coffee while you start, or otherwise keep your day job until your efforts discover real markets.
Time is on your side... creating something new is about a necessary and sufficient minimum order. For both a start-up and expansion through MOQ FOB.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
The enemy of this process is perfection. Look at the first Apple computer.
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| A Start |
With this in mind, you see it does not take much to get started, only enough orders from the market to cover the supplier's minimum in a workable amount of time, profitably. If you try to design for more than that, you are likely to waste your time and resources. If you design only for that, then you can finance this thing yourself.
Now as to MOQ FOB, which is a tactic for a viable company (post start-up) you are in a process of "search and learn" new markets.
Here you too offer a minimum, the smallest order you can rationally sell, as opposed to the largest order you can get. The killer here is "samples" and especially "free samples."
If you offer samples for potential customers to try, you will certainly attract people who enjoy a free sample. With free samples, you'll send out 100 before you get an order. If you pay the fedex to the potential "customer" you'll send out 1000. But you won't last that long, at say $75 a pop for fedex, 1000 free samples is $75,000 out of pocket. People who give free samples quite before that.
So what is the tactic? No free samples. In fact, no samples, free or otherwise. A real buyer is testing the product. Don't listen to nonsense about "flavor profile" or quality review, your product has passed USA market-proofing. You are selling a proven product into a foreign market. The real buyers want a minimum order quantity to test on their real customers. What some person inside the company has to say has no relation to what their customers might think or feel.
If you offer no free samples, will you lose orders? Perhaps... but with a no free samples/ no samples policy you position yourself to fail only if you quit...
In this way you can go the distance, your only inquiries will be real business. If you are an owner of the means of production, you can continue domestically while allowing solid export biz to develop. If you are acting only as an agent, you can serve coffee while you start, or otherwise keep your day job until your efforts discover real markets.
Time is on your side... creating something new is about a necessary and sufficient minimum order. For both a start-up and expansion through MOQ FOB.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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