Most depressing day?

January 18, 2010 at 4:57 pm | Posted in Doing business in China, Environment, Importing from China, improve costs, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy | Leave a comment
Tags: , , , , , , ,

I heard on the radio earlier that it has been scientifically determined that today – the third Monday in January – is the most depressing day of the year.
I didn’t hear what factors are used in determining this, but I can only assume it has something to do with credit card bills relating to excessive spending over the Christmas period arriving about now, allied to the good cheer of the holidays wearing off, allied to the fact that most new year resolutions will be broken about now, allied to the weather not showing any signs of improvement yet, allied to the fact that the summer hoildays are just about as far away as they could possibly be…. I guess you get the message :)
But really, it’s just another Monday, like any other Monday, and if you take that logic another step…. it’s just another day, and you can make it as ordinary or as special as you want it to be.
Earlier, I put a little link on my twitter page to a website with positive sayings from famous people, and I got loads of positive responses. Based on that, my scientific research concludes ‘not everyone sees the third Monday in January day as being a write-off.
I spent some time over the weekend driving around the Irish countryside, and I was pleasantly surprised to note the increasing amount of houses that have Solar panels installed on the roofs. What really impressed me is that these are not all new houses. To me, this indicates that there is a slow but definite move towards renewables and micro-generation amongst the Irish population. I think this is an important and positive trend, and one that we will see accelerate over the coming months of 2010 and into 2011, as fossil fuel prices continue to increase and carbon taxes become more mainstream.
Ogham Sourcing is currently working with a number of Chinese manufacturers of Solar Panels with a view to finding a supplier or a range of suppliers whose products are suitable for the Irish Environment. If your business is involved in, or considering involvement in any area of renewables, and is considering sourcing these products from China, you need to talk to Ogham Sourcing
We have a permanently manned office in mainland China, run by an Irish manager, with a Chinese team supporting him.
Our contact details are on our website, and we would be delighted to introduce you to our company and discuss what we can do to help your business in importing from China.

China and the Chinese.. What a recovery!!

August 31, 2009 at 11:01 am | Posted in Doing business in China, Importing from China, Trading in China | Leave a comment
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I have just finished reading a terrific book at the weekend.  It’s called Wild Swans, written by a Chinese lady named Jung Chang.  The book tells the Story of China  from the late 1800′s to the late 1900′s through the lives of a Grandmother, Mother and Daughter.  It gives an insight to how the country was brought to it’s knees and worse by Chairman Mao and his coterie of underlings, and gives some detail on the destruction, the hardship, famine, killings and more that were the norm under his reign. The scary part about this is that it continued right up through the 1960′s and into the 1970′s.  Not that long ago!

However after his death, in 1976, Deng Xiaoping led the recovery of the Country by opening trade with the west, and what a recovery China has made in the short number of years since.  The Chinese now have a country with Growth of 6-8%, unheard of practicfally anywhere else in the world at present.  So from a standing start in the early 80′s China is now a world leader.  Size and population are significant advantages, and the Government are making best use of both assets to ensure the continued growth.

How can your business use the Chinese recovery to the best advantage?  China is growing its imports at  present, so it is a good time to look at exporting to China.  Conversely, China is a low-cost-labour environment, so businesses may be in a position to look to China to source raw materials or sub-assemblies for their products, or even to consider outsourcing aspects of their businesses to reduce costs.

China can bring opportunities to many businesses, and Ogham Sourcing Ltd, and Irish Company with a permanent office in Shenzhen, China is well positioned to assist Irish and UK businesses who want to conduct trade in China.  Our Irish Manager and Chinese Team has many years of experience working in and working with Chinese businesses and are ready to assist with Export, Import and Outsourcing projects.

Getting the Best Value Importing from China (Part 2)

August 20, 2009 at 10:50 am | Posted in Trading in China | 1 Comment
Tags: , , , ,

In my last post I wrote about the fact that China is a low-cost labour area, and today, I’ll be sticking with the area of costs, but looking at another aspect, the relationship between the purchase cost of the item and the cost of shipping it from China to your location.  In general, Freight companies cost their freight services wither by Weight or by Cubic Volume. (There are some categories of product that attract a premium, for instance Hazardous Goods however we’ll leave those for another day)  For Air Freight, the shipping company will charge you by weight or by Volume, whichever will give him the greater price. So what is Cubic Volume? Put simply, it’s the amount of space that a product will take up in a plane or truck or container.  It’s calculated by multiplying the Height by the Length by the width of the product.

So let’s look at an example.  Let’s say a prospective importer is looking at plastic toy tractors, and he finds a supplier who will sell to him at €10.00 each.  The tractor ships in a cardboard carton that measures 1.0mtr long x 0.7mtr high x 0.5m wide .  The prospective importer believes he can sell a full 20ft container load of these tractors.  A full 20 ft container has has a capacity of 28 cubic metres, and for the sake of simplicity and round numbers, costs €1500 to ship from China to the Customer’s port.

The sums

The cubic volume of the container is 0.35 cubic metres. (1.0 x 0.7 x 0.5)

We can get 80 tractors into the container (28 / 0.35)

Cost per Tractor to ship:    €18.75

So from an initial purchase price of €10, when the freight cost is added we’re at €28.75, a very significant leap, which might suddenly mean that the product is no longer a viable saleable item at this price.

So the lesson here is don’t just look at the purchase price, look at all the costs involved in getting the product to your door.

Ogham Sourcing Ltd. is an Irish company based in Cork, with a permanent office in Shenzhen, China.  Our experienced team is available to assist you with your queries regarding importing from China.  Contact us today from the details on our website to find out how we can help you to turn your import ideas into realities

Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.