One of our traders in the top
end made recently made a stock purchase as an importer and he recommends others
do the same.
Our global economy has
changed the nature of manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing forever and many
traders have embraced direct supply from overseas.
The trader in this story had
tried importing once before but had his fingers burned, firstly by an unscrupulous
customs agent and secondly by product choices that were not ideal. He decided
there were too many pitfalls. But he had run out of a key product in his range
and the Australian supplier had fallen foul of the retail recession, deciding
not to continue importing.
Our trader wrote to the manufacturer
in the UK and laid out his case. He explained he was a small retailer and
needed a cost effective price/freight structure to make the deal worthwhile but
he was confident of placing regular orders.
Two day later our trader had
a price and volume level that he could handle and a quote on airfreight that
was manageable so he organised an overseas funds transfer with his bank and
placed the order. Barely 5 days later a carton arrived at his local Post
Office.
It turned out that the UK
freight forwarder had a relationship with Australia Post and everything went
smoothly. The cost of the goods was less than $1000 so there were no import
complications although even if it had been more than $1000, the connection with
Australia Post means filling out a few forms to get customs clearance. Traders
may prefer to use a customs agent in those cases.
The good news for the trader
was that the goods were landed for less than he had previously been paying and,
even better, he sold 14 units on his first day with the new stock. No wonder he
recommends other traders consider doing their own importing.