Thanks Ricky, for sharing your experiences.... You seem to know a lot about this topic.... :)

It sounds like there are probably still opportunities, but that it would pay to be prudent, and that the opportunities which are there may also be changing....

As you said....

> In the future, with products, which don’t
> require much technical support, warranty or
> maintenance, we could well see a downsizing
> in the number of local distributors because
> of the greater acceptance of buying online

This makes it sound like it's important to choose the products you deal in carefully....

Thanks a lot Ricky. :) I think import/export sounds like quite an exciting area in general....

By the way, here's a true story that just came to my mind....

In 1995-1996, in Melbourne, Australia (in the suburb of Elwood), I used to share an apartment with a guy, Sean, who tried exporting once, though he did it in quite an usual way.... Here's the story....

Sean had a very good friend who was from Malawi (a country in southern Africa). Apparently, there was a need for more shoes in Malawi... Together, the two of them started a business exporting second-hand shoes to Malawi.... Sean's friend's brother-in-law was their agent in Malawi.

Anyway, what they did was they went around to the various opportunity shops in Melbourne -- charity stores that sell donated second-hand items, and use the money for charity. They went to these shops and bought second-hand shoes by the kilogram.... They got them very cheaply.

They stuck their cargo of shoes on a container ship and shipped it off to Malawi, for their agent there to sell....

Unfortunately, they heard back from their Malawi agent (the brother-in-law) that the shoes weren't selling.... After a few months of hearing this, they decided to check it out for themselves, because they felt that the demand was there.... So they hopped on a plane and flew to Malawi.

Upon getting there, they discovered that the shoes *were* selling -- just the guy hadn't been telling them the truth. He was living it up on the money, and by the time they got there the profits were mostly gone....

As far as I know, they never tried this again. I guess it shows the usefulness of doing your homework, and dealing with reputable people.... And also the usefulness of using some of the "safety" tools of international trade, like letters of credit (which my apartment-mate wasn't using)....

I thought it was an interesting story, though, when I heard it....

Thanks Ricky for sharing your experiences... :)

Dien Rice