Foreign Power
Import resellers bring it home.
Inventors can run into problems getting their inventions
manufactured overseas. These problems can be severe because
entrepreneurs have to pay for their products before they get a
chance to inspect them. Therefore, they can easily end up with a
container full of the wrong product with no option of returning it.
One way to avoid this problem is to work with an import reseller, a
company that arranges for production and quality and then brings
the product into the United States under its ownership. Buying from
an import reseller ends up being no riskier than buying from an
American manufacturer. Import resellers often advertise in the back
of trade magazines.
John Stodolka, president of PCI Inc. in Little Canada,
Minnesota, imports products from Taiwan. His explanation of his
company's advantages: "We have an engineering office in
Taiwan. They help inventors locate the best manufacturer for their
product. They also interface with the manufacturer to get
preproduction units built for inventors' approval, and they do
quality control inspections during production. We bring the product
into the U.S. under our ownership so our customers don't have
to worry about any import paperwork."
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Don Debelak is a new-business marketing consultant and the
author of Bringing Your Product to Market(John Wiley
& Sons). Send him your invention questions at dondebelak@uswest.net.