EXPORTING (4): Concretely,how to do exporting? M.Benhamed.

Many people and small companies invest time and capital to take advantage of business opportunities in overseas markets across the world. Some succeed, others do not. It seems that exporting is an area of professionals and  that doing business in France  is much different from doing business in USA, Canada from Morocco, Germany from Nigeria, Spain from South Africa…

The reality is when it comes to exporting, amateurism is not conceivable. In fact, this activity exposes exporters  to new constraints,risks and ways that they have not experience such as entry to a new market, knowing other culture and language,dealing with the complexity of exporting, having a partnership base abroad, etc… All these problems are some challenges  the  exporter will face .. In this context, it is of prime importance to everyone to ask himself how to do exporting ?

By being a new in this area, novice exporter has to go abroad, to think about how to enter in the target market and how to reach new customers of his products or services. On a simple word, he has to be efficient .That is simply a fact. But let us enleye on that: Today and in spite of their inexperience in export, most young and novice exporters are waking up, looking to expand abroad and aiming to move in the right direction. To do exporting, I think that they just need a simple push from professionals and for my part,I just like sharing with all new exporters my experience for more than 25 years in exporting and international development by providing them the following 6 practical leads:

1. Gather basic information in first about the foreign market;
2. Visit the target market in second step and setting up a market analysis including principal buyers and competitors, products, packaging, prices,tax issues, etc.
3. Identify the characteristics and regulations (import duties, exchange rates,distribution channel, market size, etc…)  of the target market  in order to decide with entry strategy to persue;
4. Choosing the model of distribution appropriate to the market:i.e representative, distributive, agent,etc.. ;
5. Understanding the legal environment ( freight, delivery terms, payment terms,etc.) in which your export activity and business will operate;
6. In final, screening enquiries received  before giving any product or service information,samples or export offers.

If you are new or novice exporter, you can thinking about these leads and adding them to your export strategy and business plan (See my articles Exporting 3). You will for sure make some mistakes.This  is completely normal but the most important thing is to trust yourself and persevere.

In case of necessety,don’t hesitate to contact me in direct through this blog or to write me at my E-mail address.