RadioShack has applied for Chapter 11 following Circuit City of 3+ years ago, I’m wondering how long Best Buy, Walmart, etc can last with huge rental and labor cost comparing with Amazon, eBay, Taobao, etc. With internet becoming more and more popular, international orders from those Circuit City or RadioShack have been turning to Amazon, eBay without doubt.
Well, another route their orders have been going is direct import, as a result, there are more and more medium small importers from each country. But the problem is, how can they control the quality of the small q’ty they buy? how do they control the lead time? how do they control all the scammers, how do they avoid the cross-cultural problems, etc, these things cannot be solved by internet. They could probably get into big problems or even disaster if they don’t have a strong international team or local office from the countries where they buy like the old giants.
This is right what I’m doing just now–to work as an independent QC office, or a virtual representative office for these new medium/small importers. We provide them with product/factory sourcing service, help them to verify the reliability of the suppliers, follow-up orders, re-pack and re-label the goods and then ship to various destinations, etc But I’m struggling on how to make this business to be as big as possible. I would appreciate your comments on this. Thanks!
