Importgenius, Zepol, PIERS, all access steamship line manifest to see who is importing or exporting to and from the USA. I’ve made my arguments against these services here, and I’d add that they do not track, cannot track, Canada and Mexico. USA’s #1 and #2 trading partners! Further, anyone and many do exempt themselves from being reported upon, so the info is of dubious value to begin with.
Nonetheless, these services make good money. Recently I received and email from a Zepol rep who picked up a shipment of mine (who cares?!) and would like to sell me info on others.
It was an opportunity to inquire further.....
***
On May 15, 2014, at 11:01 AM, Jennifer wrote:
Hi John,
I’m reaching out to you because your shipment information came up in a demonstration of TradeIQ last week.
TradeIQ is a database with more than 130 million shipment receipts of imports into the United States since January 1, 2003. This includes receipts of shipments imported by your company, and your suppliers.
If you would like to look at free trial of our database just respond to this email.
Best regards,
Jennifer
Account Executive | Zepol
Jennifer.***@zepol.com |
www.zepol.com
From: John Spiers [mailto:john@johnspiers.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 1:07 PM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Re: Web Demonstration
Hey Jennifer,
Thanks for your email. If I took advantage of your free trial, what information would I get, and what would I do with it?
John
From: jennifer.***@zepol.com
Subject: RE: Web Demonstration
Date: May 19, 2014 11:50:37 AM PDT
To: john@johnspiers.com
The trial would give you access to our Import and Export database. It will show you what’s coming in and out of the U.S. via ocean.
It will give you full bill of lading detail telling you who imported the product, supplied the product, what was on the shipment, ports used, weights, measurements, etc.
Would you like to take a look?
From: John Spiers [mailto:john@johnspiers.com]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 2:06 PM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Re: Web Demonstration
Hey Jennifer,
All of that info, except for the names named, is available from the USITC.gov. So what is special with zepol is the actual names of who is doing the importing and exporting. So I hope I am not being dense, but what would I do with that unique information, the names of who is importing and exporting what and when?
John
From: jennifer.@zepol.com
Subject: RE: Web Demonstration
Date: May 19, 2014 12:12:35 PM PDT
To: john@johnspiers.com
Our clients use it for various reasons. Competitive Intelligence, lead generation, supplier sourcing, market research, etc. Those are just a few.
***
So if you will not loquacity is the inverse of opacity here. The closer we get to the point, the less to be said. Not even the courtesy of a sign-off.
Let’s go down the reasons given for using Zepol, etc:
competitive intelligence - that tells me nothing.
lead generation - that means I could use the names to pitch my products for sale. So let me think about that. As an importer, I could try to sell to other importers? Hmmm... That does not make sense. Does Lowes try to sell to Home Depot? As an importer, I could examine my competitor’s sources? But mine are better, why would I care about my competitors sources? This does not make sense either.
Lead generation on exporting? As an exporter, I could see which of my USA based competitors are selling to whom overseas at what price.
Right now at no cost I can find what all USA exporters sell what at what price to all importers in a given country. With this, I can see trends over the years to spot which countries I should target for export development.
Now let’s delineate between conservator and innovator, mas producer vs specialty. The mass producers compete on price, so if my job was to replace on USA exporter as a supplier to a customer overseas with another, namely mine, by means of lower price, then I suppose this might make sense. But, problem here is, at the big biz level, the prices noted are not ahem reliable, what for all sorts of “programs” plus the overseas buyer will simply make the USA seller prove he has a bona fide offer of the same thing at cheaper, and the overseas customer will simply squeeze that price out of their present supplier. This is a dead end game.
If one is a specialty products exporter, and I see my export competitors and to whom they are selling, well the price does not matter since my kombucha is different than my competitors, so no price comparison there.
In this instance the importer overseas may very well test mine alongside their present USA supplier’s Kombucha.
In an case I can find these names faster and cheaper (no cost) by simply googling trade show exhibitors to find the few active people with whom I need to enter discussions.
Is zepol.com an advantage here? I don’t think so.
Supplier sourcing - To be sure, alibaba etc are abominable sources of info on suppliers, a firehose of wastewaster when you only want a sip of clean water. So Zepol is a step up, way up. But at the specialty level, one assumes a leadership position, not a followers position. I very well may not end up with the same supplier as my competitors, for mine being superior. If I start out with approaching my competitor’s suppliers, I may end up there, a follower. In any event, I can find the names of the best suppliers in any given country starting with superior USITC info anyway.
Here again, is zepol.com an advantage here? I don’t think so.
market research - again, that tells me nothing.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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