Beauty Is In The Eye
. . . of the importer. Here's how to find the strange and exotic and make a pretty penny at it
Whatever you do, don't call Scarlett Messina's import
experience skin deep. Messina has traveled the world to locate
products for her New Hope, Pennsylvania, beauty-product boutique,
Scarlett. The result: a selection you can't find at your
everyday cosmetics counter. "Because my father was a professor, I lived all over the
world as a child," says Messina. "I got a flavor of what
was out there." Today, Messina estimates spending as much as 75 percent of her
time on the road and is constantly finding new products. Content Continues Below
Not all her purchases work out perfectly, though. "The
worst was Tiipiigi, a fragrance made by Inuit Indians in Greenland.
It smells like scotch! But because it's from Greenland,
customers did buy it." But not as much as expected. Messina offers these tips to U.S. entrepreneurs fancying the
idea of scouting internationally for imports: - Go off the beaten track. "We're like foragers,
hunters, gatherers," she says of her and her store
manager's trips to find new products. To find a soap-maker in
the Cotswolds, for example, Messina says she had to travel by plane
(to London), by train (to Swindon) and then by car "through
the hedgerows."
- Network. "I have a group of friends who travel and
tip me off when they find something," she says. Messina also
networks by Internet.
- Know your product. "People come to my store because
I'm a beauty aficionado," Messina notes. And her products
aren't sold haphazardly over the counter--she hires experienced
help.
- Test your market. Messina often imports only a small
amount of any product to test her customers' reactions. If the
product is popular, she returns for a larger order.
- Follow up with current vendors. It's easier, says
Messina, to ask current vendors to expand their product lines than
to seek out new vendors. "If someone does a great bath
product, I'll go back and ask them about shower gels." By
feeding ideas back to her regular vendors, she's able to expand
her product line and benefit her suppliers at the same time.
- Don't be "overly American." When doing
business abroad, it's best not to come on too strong, says
Messina. "You must realize where you are. You don't want
people to think you're taking things from them, preying upon
them. Try to embrace their culture, and don't act as if,
because you're American, you have some kind of
entitlement."
Come to think of it, that's good business advice wherever
you are.
Moira Allen is a freelance writer in Mountain View,
California, and editor of Global Writers' Ink, an
electronic newsletter for international writers.
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