So we have gone over in Part 1 about the basics of exporting and in Part 2 we went over the 55% growing middle class and why exporting is important. Today we are going to look at a basic principal of finding the markets, so two questions: 1. is that the right starting market? 2. can I be closer to home and still get the same sales?
An important stock trader once said, “The trend is your friend”, the same is true for international trade. There is a three step process that we go through that goes deeper into this pattern. First, we pull the data sets that correspond to your product or category. Second, we mark trade flows based on some key factors that we have put together and also knowledge of the market. Third, we look for trade trends whether they are free trade agreements, capacity, infrastructure development, or even a new governmental leadership and run those through our metric system.
“There is a basic THREE STEP PROCESS to Finding Markets”
This list can be sometimes skewed in many different ways and the number one way is relative location of your product to the marketplace. If you are selling let’s say German specialty food products (and your company is from Germany) your product would have a higher distribution closer to the German speaking population than say South America in Colombia (not to say there isn’t anyone from Germany in Colombia) but the product will be sold much more direct to Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, etc.
Regarding metrics we usually take the list and the metrics and drill down to the top 20 markets. Taking into account a company’s current export markets, if there are any, we eliminate those and focus on others.
CASE STUDY: A U.S Manufacturer of medical devices (tools used in surgery), came to us to help find markets for their products overseas. We quickly determined possible markets based on factors the company provided and found that their products were in high demand in South Central Asia at a rapid increase in the past three months. Why South Central Asia? Well they (the country) had just built an advanced medical tourism hospital in the area and only wanted the best equipment from the two largest QUALITY medical device manufacturing countries, Germany and the US. Getting all of the data, gathering local market participation, arranging a discussion with local markets medical device board, and arranging an interview list of possible distributors and importers, we were on a plane within 5 weeks of the request, it’s really sometimes that simple.
Not all cases are as simple as the case study above (they never are!) but when a market is in demand for a product doors can open very quickly if the product has QUALITY and buying power.
The Target Markets program is a great start to the export process read about it HERE. Plus the popup that loads will give you access to our Target Markets email update
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