How to Make Million Dollars out of Exports Business
Make money as an exporter!? This is something people won’t tell you, and why am I telling you? I tell you because with this Medium Story, I made it my mission to give the possibility to those who really want it to make available to them the information, practical advice and resources necessary to undertake to not only earn money but above all thus creating employment.
Secondly, I am telling you this because I wish for you to demystify certain activities which remain the prerogative of experts in the field, while everyone can try their luck. Exporting should be made easy and straightforward for everyone.
But before you start…
You must know that an export business is a capital intensive and requires a lot of paperwork, so very first you need to have a registered business, obtain an export license and several other legal documents. So does this means you cannot make money from exports if you don’t have a huge capital to invest in??? But that’s not true you can start right away the paperless exporters activity…
So how do you make money as an exporters without investing a great amount of investment up front?
It’s simple: be a sales agent!
So, what is a sales agent?
A sales agent is a person, usually located in the seller’s country (say Cameroon here), who is responsible for soliciting, finding and securing orders from potential customers in another (foreign) country. In this case, the sale is not made by the commercial agent, but by the seller directly to the foreign buyer, with a commission for the agent. Let us now analyze the different steps to be taken to earn money as a commercial agent.
Activities of a commercial agent
Step 1: What products do you want to sell?
The first step for any sales agent is to find out about and create an offer on the products for sale, for example cocoa, charcoal, ginger, garlic etc.
Step 2: Find buyers for your products
The next expected step of a sales agent is to find a buyer for this product and collect the desired quantities. In most of the cases; you will be asked to submit your price list and quote. How to find buyers for your products.
Step 3: Find suppliers for your target products
The next step is to contact a true exporter of the targeted product. t For example, if you want to sell garlic; established exporters already do this in your country. You’re just going to pick a few from these exporters. If you want to sell cocoa; exporters established in your country are already doing this. You will simply search among these exporters and contact them you can do this with several methods such as searching across the internet for yellow pages, contacting the chamber of commerce, finding suppliers from the online marketplaces, other offline means well! Whatever products you choose, there are already established exporters.
4 Edgy Online Marketplaces with list of buyers and suppliers
If you are the one tapping in to the power of yet another channel with a huge global market share, ebay is a wonderful option. The colossal marketplace offers you access to more than 100s of active importers, exporters, traders and suppliers who generate collectively more than $95 billion annually with presence in 190 markets all across the world, so you will unlimited opportunities to find suppliers expand exports and grow.
The leading online marketplace of United States Amazon, closes every year $280 billion more or less in net sales. The Amazon Marketplace is among one of the most well acknowledged marketing channels among the supplier’s traders and online retailers which also makes it leader among the competitors
The business to business marketplace based in USA is well reckoned globally and is the most trustworthy online marketplace. eWorldTrade is another name for providing online business opportunities for more than 250 countries from all over the world. The B2B portal for buyers, sellers and Traders is secure and transparent with quality service all over the world
Walmart brings in 127 million cream of visitor every month and as per the consumer research there is a huge overlap between the Amazon and Walmart suppliers. Over 57% of the amazon buyers also shop from Walmart. So if you have presence in both the marketplaces you can have a better chance to get the massive target markets
Step 4: Make the salesperson in you shine
After finding the desired exporter (s); collect their price list after a good negotiation. Then you tell them that you will love to be their sales agent. Of course, don’t forget to tell them that they won’t pay you because you will be making money with your buyer as a commission. One last thing don’t forget to ask them (your chosen exporter) for their preferred payment method!
Step 5: Define your margins and expectations
Now that you have the prices from the exporter or supplier, add your commission to them. You can on average add 20% commission, I would advise you especially to set your commission according to the quantity that your buyer wants to take. If you can easily convince your buyer to buy at 25,000 per tonne; then @ 20 percent commission deal you can manage to make 5,000 out of every ton sold. If he buys 10 tons; it will be a commission of 5,000 x 10 = 50,000. I hope the process is clear so far?
Step 6: Choose a secure payment method
The next thing to do is to indicate to the buyer the method of payment according to what has been agreed with the supplier, the exporter.
Step 7: Connect the supplier and the buyer
At this stage; you will need to put your exporter in contact with your buyer to handle the paperwork required for purchasing and shipping needs. Depending on the payment method, bank paperwork may also be involved.
NOTE: Before connecting your client / buyer to the actual exporter, be sure to inform your exporter about any agreements made so far with the buyer and the commission due if the transaction is successful. Do I need to clarify that there must be a written agreement between you and the exporter regarding your commission? It goes without saying, be smart!!!
Step 8: Monitor the workflow
The ultimate is to track and monitor the transaction as it occurs. I know that this article would not be to everyone’s liking, especially those who see their activity exposed on the web. But that’s exactly what some people do in the ports and they make a lot of money with it. So don’t hesitate, if you have sales skills, get started!!! There is nothing to lose as the government of countries increasingly encourages exports.
