I am currently looking at setting up a new B2C etail / ecom brand. I would manufacture abroad and most likely have them shipped to the uk. But how would I go about international shipping. I would plan to target the products to the target market in the big 4, US, UK AUS, CAN. Would I need fulfilment centres in each country to make it viable? Because shipping anything to the US is quite expensive now since the big man in the wig messed it all up! Any advice welcomed.
OK but my main question was how would I ship to all the continents? Like US, Africa, Aus etc? Shipping from the UK is not viable. For example, Blend Jet, a recent phenomenon, they must have distribution centres all around the world? How do these companies make shipping fast and cheap (or even 'free')
Eh? Why is shipping from the UK not viable? Yes can use someone else's fulfilment centres. For a price. Plus of course shipping in to the centre. Or you can open up your own. Again for a price.
First take a step back and forget world wide dominance, as a startup you will not have the money or employees to start in all countries, so just forget them for the time being and just concentrate on getting the UK up and running and building a brand, which I assure you will take all your efforts and more You need to do your research and then do it again and whilst the forum is good for some things, traditional google and talking to companies is where you get real facts You mention manufacturing abroad, why would be the first question for some things abroad is far cheaper but that often comes with unforeseen risks and costs like opening up a market for the manufacturer to take advantage of or poor quality control, alternatively there is much to be said of UK manufacturing where you can be far more in control of costs, quality and delivery times, which may overcome any price difference It would help the forum if you mentioned the industry you were looking at without going into to much detail
Yes I know China is not always the first port of call but I think I know enough about technicalities of things and think China would be the best place for this. Though I know when shipping and import charges start getting involved things get unbalanced. I will need glass reinforced nylon buckles and nylon webbing fabric printed in full colour. QTY wise around maybe 1000pc to begin with.
Then trial say 75 of that 1000 in each market you intend to go into. Stored in a fulfilment place. Just be aware of local taxes - US has sales taxes, other places may have different. And of course meeting local laws regarding product and labelling. A few years back we looked at shipping a certain range to the US and storing in a couple of fulfilment sites. The process of research and sorting out issues took about a year and in the end we had to drop the project.
No, trial the storage of stuff in a foreign place. Manufacturing of a thousand is - for many factories - going to be small order or something they do on a large scale with a thousand sent to you. Don't try cutting the number down of what you order. Biggest obstacles were proving the items met lots of different laws (multiple states) regarding materials. And figuring out which service to use. Lots of places do fulfilment, getting stuff to the customer in one piece requires either we do weeks of work prepping them or else we spend a half day prepping and the storing organisation pack them to required standards. Money wasn't an issue, costs get built into pricing anyway. Returns due to arriving broken are an issue. Imagine a range of a couple of hundred items. Now imagine 12 of them have particular stress points that must be packed a certain way. Was easier for us (though had a cost) for manufacturer to divert a couple of containers from China to the US than for a few dozen pallets to arrive at our warehouse, get repacked then shipped a half dozen at a time to the US. Knock on effect though was requirement for our work to be done by someone else there.
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