Physical Products can be NECSTY

[Walter Hay]

Declared value what you paid the vendor.

That's right, but you will find that it's not only the amount paid to the vendor (FOB value), but also freight cost. That means FOB + Freight paid is the declared value on which duty and taxes (if any) will be paid.

There is no difference after the goods are landed. Wholesale sales and retail sales will still have cost you the same unit price including duty and tax.

Walter

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[G-Man]

@Walter Hay yes and thanks for catching my mistake. Something I always absorbed without realizing. A good example that I and the folks in this forum are not lawyers.

A good reminder to that nothing can replace your own research and legal counsel

 

[amp0193]

That's right, but you will find that it's not only the amount paid to the vendor (FOB value), but also freight cost. That means FOB + Freight paid is the declared value on which duty and taxes (if any) will be paid.
Walter

Interesting. Many of my products are small/light and shipped via DHL express.

In 2 years, my customs fees have always been .XX% of the declared value of goods.

Is there any reason that this situation is different than the one you described with FOB + Freight?

 

[Walter Hay]

Interesting. Many of my products are small/light and shipped via DHL express.

In 2 years, my customs fees have always been .XX% of the declared value of goods.

Is there any reason that this situation is different than the one you described with FOB + Freight?

Yes, air couriers often clear through Customs by declaring the FOB value only. It's illegal, but has been common practice for years and Customs authorities in many countries don't bother to enforce the rule for informal clearances.

Walter

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[G-Man]

So our product recently got placement in Sam's Club, and I've learned a couple things that might be useful for anyone that wants to sell in club stores.

• Data can be deceptive. We chose our club stores based on the performance of a competitor's sku. We did not go to the clubs before we placed. Yuge mistake. So, when I walk into a club for the first time to try to figure out why the product isn't moving, I know the answer as soon as I pull in the parking lot, and it could have been avoided..... This leads me to lesson two:
• There's no replacement for boots on the ground. Your goal is to create wide distribution where your product sits on the shelf all over the country, selling 24/7/365 all by itself. This doesn't happen at first. Walking into individual club stores, we discovered they had the ability to change placement at the club managers' discretion literally overnight. Like, Tuesday it's deep in the middle of the rack, and Wednesday morning it's on an endcap, and for the small price of talking to the manager for 10-15 minutes.
• Data still matters. The goal when you're in B&M is to do everything you can, including standing in supermarkets handing product to people if necessary, to get your awareness and velocity up. Your goal is to show the stores you're in moving crazy velocities. That's the data merchandisers at other chains look for. Think short term micromanagement for long term no-management.

 

[OldFaithful]

I know the answer as soon as I pull in the parking lot

So what was it that you learned in the parking lot?

 

[G-Man]

So what was it that you learned in the parking lot?

TLDR: None of the people in the parking lot were my customer.

Disclaimer: I cannot explain this in a PC way. Anyone that's done marketing knows customer profiling is not PC.

In the parking lot I saw mostly large Hispanic families and Asian men who had the cut of shop/restaurant owners. The first thing I saw on an endcap in the store was plain 50lb bags of rice... on a freaking endcap, and the store was full of store owner types with flat carts.

Alternatively, in a club we do well in, if I walk in there on a weekend, I see young families stocking up. On a weekday I see semi-affluent looking housewives. The endcap displays are household products or specialty food items, not bulk food staples.

This is why you gotta go to the stores. If you're in there for 30 minutes and don't see but maybe 1 or 2 people that meet your customer profile, you can ignore whatever those spreadsheets seem to tell you.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[OldFaithful]

Disclaimer: I cannot explain this in a PC way......If you're in there for 30 minutes and don't see but maybe 1 or 2 people that meet your customer profile, you can ignore whatever those spreadsheets seem to tell you.

Thank you, that makes much more sense now.

 

[G-Man]

As a semi aside: I benefited a lot from reading 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene. It's much better than 48 laws (because it isn't as sociopathic). There are a lot of references to Napoleon's intelligence gathering techniques. He paid attention to every detail he could see with his own eyes, then trusted his gut.

I have found that I make better commercial decisions when I go boots on the ground + gut than I do when I analyze a bunch of data. Something to keep in mind. A lot of folks seem to think that once you've gotten on the shelves at a retailer, the battle is over, when really its just begun.

Caveat: When reading 33 strategies, there is a fair amount of "Business is War" nonsense. If you can look past that, a lot of the other lessons to be learned are very useful. I guess it sells books to make the guy that sits at a desk feel like what he does is somehow similar to kicking down doors in Ramadi