Questions

How can I stay competitive among the local competitors as an agent importing foreign goods?

I want to import a drone positioning system into my country and commercialize it. As an agent rather than the original tech inventor, how could I still make a profit once my competitors (bigger companies or my clients) start to import it without me or even clone the system themselves?

3answers

I'm going to make 2 assumptions in my reply

1. You're selling these to companies
2. These are rather expensive systems.

Basically for such a situation, what you have right now is a first mover advantage. That basically means you have the opportunity to gain quick traction and find early adopters for your systems.

If you act fast enough and manage to get companies to buy them from you, this gives you a huge advantage on your competitors. Why?

This is because you have the opportunity to forge close relationships with customers and get testimonials. In the future, your competitors might be able to beat you pricewise, but that is never a substitute for trust in your company and the relationships you've been able to forge.

So I would suggest spending a lot of time on 2 things

1. Creating a holistic experience for the customer from the installation of the software to the deployment. You want to be there at every step of the way when needed. If necessary, set it up for them, do some free repairs(If it doesn't cost you much). At this point you're building the relationship between you and your customers so going the extra mile counts.

2. You also want to start getting some form of testimonial to build trust and confidence in your product. This is important because word-of-mouth is more influential than advertising when selling a product.

Without further information, this is all that I can come up with for now. If you're keen, I could discuss more specific strategies with you for your business and cover key actionable steps you could take to accelerate your growth and sales. :)


Answered 6 years ago

Ivan is spot-on with practical steps you can take.

I want to further explain this way of positioning. Find out right now - before the competition starts - what your competitive advantage will be. The personal experience, high quality customer services approach is the right one for a small business with large competitors.

Ask yourself what your customers need out of the experience and what they want; what are you, uniquely, positioned to give them, and focus on that in every interaction with your market.


Answered 6 years ago

Understand your customers and choose the right marketing methods to reach them.

1. Social media: Learn how to use social networks to connect with customers and build relationships.
Advertising puts the right message in front of the right people at the right time.

2. Customer care: Good customer care can help you develop better, more loyal customer relationships.

3. Sales: A sales strategy brings in the money that enables your business to survive and grow.

4. Market research: Market research gives you useful insights to help guide your business decisions.

5. Direct marketing: Direct marketing can be a good way to generate sales from existing and new customers.

6. Exhibitions and events: Understanding how displaying and networking at exhibitions and events can benefit your business.

7. PR: Understand how to attract the attention of editors and journalists to get media coverage.
Business competition can be fierce, especially in markets with aggressive competitors and when customer spending is slowing down.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath


Answered 3 years ago

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