Importing, Demystified

Over the years, various direct marketers have attempted to portray the import-export industry as a combination business opportunity and get-rich-quick scheme in an attempt to persuade people to purchase their training manuals, books and other moneymaking products.

Some of these marketers have been successful at capturing the financial benefits and tax savings associated with owning your own business and becoming a world trader, but for the most part what they were selling was based upon hype and false promises. Leading consumers to believe that for a minimal investment of time and money they could become rich overnight.

Fortunes can be made in international trade and fortunes can be lost if you choose to believe the hype and not the sobering realities of the business itself. Importing is a business and like any other business there are certain rules, guidelines and procedures that must be followed if you want other international traders to take you seriously and hopefully do business with you on a day to day basis.

Until you understand how these basic fundamentals work you won't be able to brand yourself as a bona fide "world trader" and make the kind of contacts that you need to build your business. This title doesn't come easy. The same rules that apply to the hundreds of other importers and exporters apply to you as well. And they have remained the same since the days of the first Spanish traders that sailed the oceans looking for new trade routes and worlds to conquer.

People from different country trade with each other as a matter of survival. The Hudson Bay Company was one of the first successful British companies to operate an international trading business in the areas surrounding the Hudson Bay in Canada. For one hundred years this company traded in skins and furs between its own country and Canada.