What do foreign trade companies rely on to survive and develop? Naturally, it depends on foreign buyers or customers! Without long-term stable old customers and a steady stream of new customers, export-oriented foreign trade companies are bound to face a serious survival crisis, not to mention any new export development space. But the grim reality is that with the full liberalization of China's foreign trade export management rights, more and more manufacturers can directly face the international market, and a large number of foreign buyers are more willing to contact manufacturers directly to reduce procurement costs. Naturally, the life of China foreign trade company is getting harder and harder. According to incomplete statistics, almost more than 50% of all foreign inquiries published on the Internet clearly indicate that they only want to contact manufacturers, which is one of the main reasons why the response rate of foreign trade personnel of many foreign trade companies has never been improved. As a foreign trade company, we can't change the reality and trend that foreign businessmen always want to contact manufacturers directly, but we can conform to this reality, adapt to this reality, and make effective adjustments and be as flexible as possible in business ideas and methods in view of this reality, so as to successfully solve this biggest "dilemma" to a certain extent! The eight countermeasures I suggest are as follows: countermeasure 1: foreign trade companies should make themselves manufacturers; Foreign trade companies are not manufacturers, and it is impossible for small and medium-sized foreign trade companies to invest in manufacturers. However, when foreign trade companies contact foreign investors by mail for the first time. But you can package yourself as an honest manufacturer in order to get a quick reply from foreign businessmen. The main methods of operation are: a, at the beginning of the email, use short and vague introductory language to make foreign businessmen mistakenly think that you are a "manufacturer", such as the words as one of the major exporters and manufacturers are in ..., and so on. B if the English names of some foreign trade companies contain the words "Trading" or "Exporting", it is better to remove them and replace them with neutral names such as "Business" or "Enterprise". C. If the English names of some foreign trade companies contain the words "Trading" or "Exporting", which cannot be removed, you can remind the foreign businessmen at the beginning of the email that the products you quoted are from the factories you own or invest in, for example, we invest in such factories ... At the beginning of your email, you can also directly state that you are the export department or export (exclusive) agent of a China manufacturer, such as the words as the export department. E. In fact, if you are sure that foreign businessmen can't judge that you are just a middleman from your company name or email content, then you might as well leave out the introduction link and make a detailed and good offer directly to foreign businessmen. Isn't the last thing every foreign businessman wants a good quotation? Countermeasure 2: Foreign trade companies should make themselves more professional; Ordinary foreign trade companies can do anything, but if they can make themselves more professional or make foreign businessmen feel that you are very professional, they will undoubtedly greatly encourage foreign businessmen to contact you; If you want to be more professional, you should try your best to concentrate on developing and exporting a certain kind or commodity; When you can't major for a while and are looking for new product development, if you want to make foreign businessmen feel that you are professional, you might as well try the following methods: a, add the name of the department at the end of the email contacting foreign businessmen, or even a fictional department. If you report slippers to customers, add the words slippers department before the company name at the end of the email. B, you can invest appropriately to make an English website for products. If you want to focus on exporting slippers, you should spend some money to make a professional enterprise website, which is full of slippers you export. Obviously. When all foreign businessmen see on the Internet are your exported slippers, will foreign businessmen doubt your professionalism? C, many foreign trade companies have many kinds of export products listed on their corporate websites, and it seems that they can do everything. Imagine what the first feeling will be when foreign businessmen log on to a website like yours. Naturally, you are very unprofessional! Therefore, when you want foreign businessmen to log on to a website like yours, you might as well send the secondary page URL of related products directly to foreign businessmen, and don't let them go to your "colorful" homepage first. Countermeasure 3: foreign trade companies should look for lower prices; The main reason why foreign businessmen always want to contact manufacturers directly without going through foreign trade companies is to reduce intermediate links to reduce procurement costs and obtain the lowest possible price. Obviously, if the export quotation of foreign trade companies is much higher than that of manufacturers, it will be more difficult for you to get a quick reply from foreign businessmen. Then, will the quotation of a foreign trade company be higher than that of an exporter? This should be the case in theory, but it is not entirely the case in the practice of export trade in reality. First of all, the production costs of different manufacturers can't be the same, so their ex-factory prices are always high and low. Secondly, the profit target of different manufacturers is also different, which leads to the difference of their sales prices. Thirdly, the different relationships between different manufacturers and different foreign trade companies also directly affect their sales quotations. Therefore, many manufacturers naturally quote high, medium and low prices for the same export product. As long as foreign trade can find low-priced manufacturers and manufacturers whose quotations are not higher than the middle price after a certain profit, their export quotations will be competitive! Countermeasure 4: foreign trade companies should take the road of combining industry and trade; The slogan of "combining industry and trade" has been put forward for more than 20 years, which naturally has many meanings, but some of them are not operable for small and medium-sized foreign trade companies. Here I recommend a combination of industry and trade based on the export agency system, which I think should be feasible. The general steps are as follows: a, choose the export commodities that you have strength or plan to focus on; B, select 1-2 manufacturers with export history or producing export products. Of course, in the case of a certain quality, we must choose the manufacturer with the lowest export price, and it would be better if the manufacturer does not export by itself. Sign a formal "cooperative export agreement" with this factory. The contents of the Agreement are different, but at least a few points should be stated: 1, foreign trade companies can contact and negotiate with the outside world in the name of the manufacturer, for example, in the name of the second export department of the manufacturer; 2. Under any circumstances, manufacturers must not skip foreign trade companies, especially foreign businessmen, to see the factory; 3. The manufacturer shall provide the lowest export dollar price for the foreign trade company, and the foreign trade company may quote1%-2% on the basis; And so on. The purpose of doing this is nothing more than indirectly obtaining the identity of a virtual manufacturer and getting the best export price as much as possible. Isn't that what all foreign trade companies want? Countermeasure 5: foreign trade companies should rely on services to retain foreign businessmen; Foreign trade industry is a typical service industry, and the service quality of foreign trade companies is obviously one of the most important factors to attract and retain foreign businessmen. So many small trading companies like Hong Kong and Singapore have worse objective conditions than domestic foreign trade companies in many aspects, but why can they keep thriving? The main reason may be its excellent service quality; How efficient are you? After receiving an inquiry from a foreign businessman, how long does it usually take you to make an offer to your customers? And when the customer replies to you, how long does it usually take you to reply to the customer? Try to contact customers as soon as possible and learn to reply to customers as soon as possible. You will find that more and more foreign businessmen are willing to reply to you and more and more foreign businessmen are willing to continue negotiations with you. What's your reputation? Let customers feel that your reputation is good, not just the performance of the contract. When you are in contact with a customer for the first time, can you make the customer at least "feel" that your reputation is good, so as to have initial trust in you? For example, the first quotation when you contact foreign businessmen, if it deviates too far from the market, will definitely make customers far away from you; When you make an offer to a customer, the customer confirms it to you, but you quickly go back on your word, how will foreign businessmen feel? I believe that you will probably lose this customer forever; C, what are your abilities? We have noticed that many foreign buyers are still willing to buy through Hong Kong businessmen even though they know that their prices will not be low. A very important reason is that Hong Kong businessmen have strong communication skills with foreign buyers, and their English skills are also very strong. They can easily talk directly with foreign businessmen, fully understand their requirements and know how to meet them as much as possible. What many foreign trade companies in the mainland lack first is the ability to communicate with foreign businessmen! Countermeasure 6: Foreign trade companies should enhance their image; Many people may wonder: enhancing the image should be the business of large foreign trade companies. Small and medium-sized foreign trade companies have only a few people or a dozen people, so much capital. Is it necessary to improve their image? Can you still improve your image? Our answer is yes. Small and medium-sized foreign trade companies are not well-known and lack credibility, so they need to improve their image. Many foreign trade companies spend a lot of money to buy a booth at the Canton Fair every year. Do you ask them if they all have an agreement? Many people shake their heads, but ask them again, why spend money every year? They will all answer: going to the Canton Fair is nothing more than trying to improve their image and show that they have certain strength; However, not every small and medium-sized foreign trade company has the opportunity or is willing to spend such a large sum of money to go to the Canton Fair every time; Fortunately, now is the Internet age, and foreign trade companies of all sizes should be able to enhance their image through online channels. If a foreign trade company wants to improve its image, it must obtain the ranking position (the top 8 on the right) of the home page in the relevant English keyword search on the global authoritative English search engine (Google is preferred) for a long time (at least one year)! For example, foreign buyers who import stationery usually input stationery into Google and other search engines from time to time to find relevant suppliers or just want to find relevant information. When foreign buyers find your advertisement link on the homepage every time they enter stationery for a period of time, they will eventually believe that you should be a very professional and powerful stationery supplier, and its long-term positive role is self-evident. At present, a large number of foreign trade companies are not interested in export promotion, and this business philosophy seems to be changing.