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You may be able to find new business chance or new profit growing point by being able to directly import from China. It can be complicated, but it pays to take the effort for immediate profit and long run success.

Steps

1. Find the products of your interest
There are many sources to find your products. Internet is the easiest one to start with. There are many web listing services. In my view, www.alibaba.com is the best. Register your username on www.alibaba.com website, post the products of your interest, and you will receive tons of products supply information and perhaps price list.

2. Establish relationship with potential suppliers
Select a few potential suppliers to communicate with. Narrow down the ones that you really want to work with. Discuss the price and trade relationship. Obtain product samples. Discuss shipping and payment terms. Gather all necessary information to prepare for placing a trial order.

3. Understand trade terms and use them
Before placing any order, you need to understand and confirm with your suppliers about shipment terms. Most popular are FOB and CIF, as well as payment terms. These are closely related to your landing cost calculation and risk assessment. You can consult an import management company and a freight forwarder for detail break-down on the costs and risks. You can also use an import management company to negotiate the trade terms.

4. Do your homework on compliance issues
You need to understand the relevant import compliance regulations before hand. Besides US Customs and Border Protection, other government authorities like USDA, FDA, DOT, and ATF also regulate the importation. Pay particular attention when you import textile products from China. Go to the websites of these agencies to understand, register or download the forms. Compliance issues can be very complicated for some products. It is highly recommended to consult a good Customs House Broker before placing any order.

5. Select a forwarder and Customs House broker
Go to your local international trade organization/association and Customs office to find the list. Visit them, and select the one you like. For the first time importer, I would suggest you to use more individualized services, because you need more attention than you would expect.

6. Place a trial order
If everything goes fine. Please a trial order with a written Purchase Order. In the purchase order, besides type out the detail description of the products and trade terms, list all needed shipping documents.

7. Transportation and Customs clearance
Your forwarder and Customs broker are take care of your transportation and Customs clearance. However, you also need to track the process and assistance, such as providing additional products information and endorsing bill of lading. You need to issue a power of attorney to your broker and purchase Customs bond for your importation.

8. Receive the products and keep the records
Now you can go to your next step to sell your products and make profit. Now you are on the track.

Tips

Pay attention to the kind of business of your supplier, are they manufacturers, or 3rd party suppliers? Compare the advantage and disadvantage. Manufacturers may have faster response in the process of product development, while 3rd-party suppliers has a broader channels that can satisfy your other needs in the future. Some are 4th-party suppliers that I do not recommend to work with.

Establish healthy personal relationship with the key employees of your supplier is very important in doing business with Chinese people.

You need to have a realistic consideration of the landing cost. There may be many hidden costs. The best way is to consult an import management company.

Letter of Credit is commonly used in trade with China. Go to your bank to get detail formality and cost.

Export agents in China are very commonly hired by China exporters. Some of these export agents are also 3rd-party suppliers, others just provide export services.

Neglecting compliance can be very costly. Not only you may need to pay unexpected and very high Customs duty such as anti-dumping duty, but also you may risk delay the Customs clearance and pay the expensive storage fee at the railway station or container yard.

If solid wood packaging material is used, talk to your broker. Sometimes pallet packing is necessary to reduce the transportation cost during the process of loading and unloading. Talk to your forwarder for detail.

Composed by YuJie Tang, March 8, 2006
www.chinalinq.com
Top 100 US importers are dominated by big retailers.
Top 100 US exporters are dominated by paper exporter, especially waste paper exporter to China.

The list of top 100 exporter are interesting. A lot of companies in this list are unheard of for many people. The main reason is that they are in B2B business.

19 companies out of the top 100 export paper related products. Because this list is ranked by export shipment volume, not by value, most companies listed here export low value raw materials, such as paper, food, agri-products, chemicals. US export goes to two extremes, one is low value raw material related products, another is high tech products like electronic products (integrated circuit, telecom equipment) and aircrafts. Boeing exported about $7 billion last year.

To the contrary of the exporters, most importer are well known in the US. I counted that 35 of top 100 are big retailers. Compared to US export products, the import products are mid-valued. Most are ready to be sold to final consumers.

If you are thinking for start some kind of import or export business, I would suggest you first pay attention to the trend and pattern as you can see from the top 100 importer and top 100 exporter, and secondly think of what you can do with China.

 Top-100 US importers

These companies are among  top-100 US importers that has significant import from China (by shipment volume) Data come from Journal of Commerce.

1) Wal-Mart

2) Home Depot

3) Target

4) Sears

7) Ikea - Danish furniture maker has more than 200 stores worldwide

8) Lowe's - second-largest home improvement retailer, 1075 stores in the US

11) Ashley Furniture Industries - Private manufacturer and distributor that has 90 Ashley Furniture Home Stores

17) Williams - Sonoma, Inc - has more than 530 stores

18) Mattel Inc - Largest US toymaker owns Fisher Price, Barbie, American Girl and Hot Wheels

19) Pier 1 Import - you already know it very well

20) Nike Inc - you know it

23) JC Penney Corp

27) Dollar General - has 7551 small stores, mostly in south and Midwest

28) Toys "R" Us Inc - 1500 stores in the US

29) Big Lots Inc - 1400 stores and 5 distribution centers

32) Dorel Industries - Headquarter in Canada,  furniture and home furnishings

37) Michaels Stores

38) Whirlpool - manufactures in 50 countries

40) Walgreen Co. - 4600 stores

41) Rooms to Go - 100 stores (private)

43) Federated Department Store Inc - Macy's and bloomingdale

50) Reebok International Ltd - 200 stores

53) Dollar Tree Stores - 2500 stores

57) Family Dollars - 5600 stores

58) Retail Ventures - 110 discount stores

59) TJX Cos. - TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Bob Stores, AJ Wright 61) Conair - private

62) Liz Claiborne Inc - sell to department stores and its own 400 specialty stores

68) Fox Conn Industries - Hon Hai Precision Industries - a Taiwan ODM.

71) Gap Stores - 3000 stores

72) TPV International - Taiwan based manufacturer of color tv and display monitors

75) Best Buy - 700 stores - I know it very well.

76) Bombay Co - 550 stores - you know it well

80) Haier America Trading - a Chinese company

81) Hasbro Inc - second-largest US toymaker

82) Salton Inc - Gourmet appliance company 15 brands

84) Linens' n things - retail home goods - about 500 stores in the US. ( www.int.com )

85) Office Max Inc

87) Coaster of America - Dealer network for importer / distributor of ready-to-assemble furniture and home textiles from Asia

88) Staples Inc - Office-supply retailers, 1680 stores in 21 countries

94) Applica Consumer Products - manufacturer of appliances

97) Hamilton Beach / Proctor-Silex Inc - mfg of appliances

 

Top 100 US exporters (by shipment volume)

Data from Journal of Commerce I will make some comments on this list in my next blog.

1) America Chung Nam Inc - largest  wastepaper export to China. 200,000 TEU's a year. www.acni.net not set up yet.

2) Weyhaeuser - Forest/Paper products exporter - owns Westwood Shipping

3) DuPont

4) Cargill Inc - privately owned

5) MeadWestvaco - Forest/Paper Products exporter

6) Dow Chemical - Chemicals/Plastics/Chemicals

7) Cellmark Group - Paper

8) Procter & Gamble Co.

9) BASF Corp - Chemical

10) DaimlerChrysler

11) GE

12) Altria Group - Formerly Philip Morris

13) Allenberg Cotton - Cotton

14) Exxon Mobil Chemical

15) International Paper

16) Engelhard Corp - Chemicals / Metals

17) Allan - Paper

18) Eastman Chemical - Chemical

19) Georgria-Pacific Group - Paper/Forest products/chemicals

20) Canusa Hershman Recycling Co. - Paper

24) Ford Motor

25) Yao Yang Enterprises - Paper, the URL is interesting: www.geocities.co.jp/wallstreet/4228/yaoyang.htm

29) ConAgra Foods

31) Itochu Chemicals America

34) Sears Holding

36) Caterpillar

38) Potential Industries Inc - waste paper -

40) Goodyear

55) 3M

63) Dole

65) American Honda

71) BP

74) Chevron Corp

75) Honeywell

79) Whirlpool

92) Eastman Kodak

95) Marubeni America

98) USPS

Among the top hunderd, 19 of them export paper related items, mostly pulp and waste paper