Starting An Import Export Business

Starting an import export business or any business can be as difficult or easy as you want to make it.

The first thing you should ask is whether an import export business is really right for you? Having been in the field of import export and international business in general since 1988, I can tell you about many of the success stories.

A couple of examples that come to mind include a man who brokered a deal for $100,000 of concrete to be shipped to France. Because he took the time to learn the import export business the right way, he was able to collect a $10,000 commission for his efforts.

Then there was a young lady who was a professional massage therapist who found a trade lead from an importer in Pakistan who was searching for a manufacturing line to produce cotton balls - you know the type used to take make up off or any number of uses.

The young therapist went to her bathroom closet, looked on the bag containing the cotton balls she had stored there, found the manufacturer and called their maintenance department to ask the name of the company that made the production line. Now is that a creative way of getting information or what?

With that information in hand, she called the manufacturer, told them about her lead and negotiated a finders fee. Once she had an agreement from the production line manufacturer, she sent the importer their catalog, prices and other appropriate information.

A few days later she had a call from the importer who wanted to visit the production line manufacturer. She made the arrangements and to make a long story short, the sale went through, she received a commission of slightly over $5,000 (I believe it was) and also was placed under contract by the Pakistani importer to help them locate other goods and do so on a commission basis.

The very best international trade deal that I have ever personally heard from the international trader who put it together was from a gentleman in Florida. The trader operated from a spare bedroom (yes, I know it sound hokey but it is true) in his beachfront condo.

He was what you might call a true wheeler dealer. He related to me how when the Eastern European countries were freed from Soviet rule, these there were many people who had stored vintage cars since World War II that were still in excellent condition. These countries did not have much currency to work with but a similar wheeler dealer over there worked a deal with the Florida international trader to trade these vintage cars for jeans (of a certain brand name we all know) - so these two wheeler dealers were able to trade cars for jeans and each were making huge profits with each shipment.

This Florida exporters most lucrative deal to the time he had told me about it was for a shipment of concord grapes. An importer in Korea needed them and they were out of season in the USA so he was able to find a grower/exporter in Columbia, South America. The Korean importer issued a letter of credit for $100,000 to the Florida exporter who in turn issued a back to back letter of credit to the grower in Columbia for $70,000.

You do the math and you can see that international trade can be very lucrative, if you know what you are doing.

Our Import Export Business help center web site has been providing import export business to business services online for over 7 years now and offline since 1988. One of our primary resources are professionally produced courses and training materials on how to start an import export business.

However, unlike many of our over priced competitors in this market, I personally recommend to people to take full advantage of our free How to Start A Home Based Exporting Business ebook and other free reports before making a decision about this business.

And, before you decide to pursue the Import Export business OR any business, you should perform your due diligence on the business and the owner(s). In an effort to help you do just that, I have compiled many different free resources (most Internet based) that I use in my daily activities and you may use as often as you need them. Just visit our company page at our web site through any of the About Us - Coble International links.

Starting an Import Export Business and building it to a successful profitable enterprise is not for everyone. However, professional international trade training can provide you and/or your already existing business some very interesting and profitable deals that you might otherwise miss because you were never trained how to spot them or how to bring them to fruition.

This concludes my first post to my first blog, I hope you have found it interesting and useful. Please visit often and I will attempt to provide new information relating to various aspects of international business to business trade and importing or exporting.

Ron Coble