Selling abroad
Selling to stores in another country: a factory in China finding US shops
Your business can be anywhere. Your agent works the country you choose, finds stores there and writes to them in their language. Here is how that looks for a manufacturer that wants its first stores in the United States.
Lin runs a family factory that makes stoneware plates and bowls. For years they sold through import agents and trade fairs. Now they want to sell directly to independent kitchen, gift and home shops in the United States, where their products would sit next to brands that cost three times more. The problem is the usual one: how do you find hundreds of the right shops on the other side of the world, and how do you write to them in a way they read?
Set it up in your own language
Lin fills in the setup in Chinese: the app and the setup coach speak sixteen languages. What changes is the country of each agent. Lin chooses the United States, so the agent searches US shops and writes to them in English, while every screen, report and suggestion stays in Chinese for Lin.
- Ideal customer: independent kitchenware, gift and home shops in the United States that sell tableware, with a website and a business email; no chains, no discount stores.
- Example stores: three US shops Lin would love to be in.
- Offer: a $300 opening order, prices in US dollars, shipped from their US warehouse in 5 to 7 days, payment by card or invoice.
An offer that works across a border
A US shop owner who gets an email from a factory abroad has three questions before anything else: what does it cost delivered, how long does it take, and who handles a problem. The offer should answer them before they are asked.
- Price in their currency, delivered. Quote in US dollars and say whether shipping and import duties are included. “Duties paid, delivered to your door” removes the biggest worry.
- A small first order. A new stockist does not risk a container. A low opening minimum, with a bigger discount for larger orders, gets the first “yes”.
- Real delivery times. Stock in the country ships in days; from the factory it can take weeks. Say which one applies, honestly.
- The rules of their market. Products for children, food contact or cosmetics have their own requirements in each country. Have the documents ready, and say so only if you have them.
- A person who answers. Replies come to your email. Answer within a day, in their language and in their working hours.
What the numbers look like
Lin picks Growth, 2,000 emails a month. A new sender cannot send that many from the first day, so sending climbs week by week: about 1,640 emails can go out in the first month, and the full 2,000 from the second. Each shop that fits gets its own email, and a follow-up a week later if it does not answer; both count as emails. So in the first month well over a thousand US shops hear about Lin’s factory.
How many of those shops answer, and how many buy, is not something anyone can promise: it depends on the product, the price, the offer and how quickly Lin answers. As simple arithmetic, if 1 shop in 50 replied, a thousand shops would mean about 20 conversations in the first month. Lin’s real numbers will be on the dashboard every day, per agent: sent, opened, clicked and replied.
Arithmetic, not a promise. The reply rate above is only an assumption to show the scale. Your own rate can be higher or lower; the Reports page shows it as it happens.
Each country has its own rules, and the agent follows them
Writing to a business in another country means following that country’s rules for commercial email. The agent does it for you: in the United Kingdom it writes only to registered companies, in Brazil only to a company inbox and with a privacy notice, in Israel and South Africa it first asks for consent and writes nothing else until the store says yes. Every email carries your name, your address and an easy way to unsubscribe. The full list is in the FAQ.
These are the countries where the agents find stores today. One agent works one country, so to reach two countries you use two agents.
