I supplemented my other businesses for almost 20 years, and very active from 1998 until 2009 operating an international trade company. I have done a lot of business in this arena all over the world.
HMS is traded all over the world, with China being the largest purchaser of HMS.
You can find suppliers on Ali Baba for all types of materials, unfortunately the majority of the time these people are brokers, and not the actual buyers. You can also find all kinds of posts about people selling scrap, but unfortunately 99.99% of the time, regardless of what they claim, they are not really the sellers, but rather brokers.
Also, if you are planning on purchasing anything internationally, be prepared to travel. The only way you are going to make a transaction happen is if you travel to where the material is being sold, and transact the deal while there.
You are also going to need to create a corporation that you can conduct business under.
You are going to need to have a corporate account with a world trade bank and either obtain the credit needed to produce letters of credit under your corporation, or have the cash readily available to back up a letter of credit, or partner with someone who is able to generate a letter of credit.
You are going to need to interact with the US State Department to insure you are not doing business in countries there are trade embargo's against, or with entities that the US Government considers to be either supporting international terrorism or terrorists themselves.
You are going to want to join the ICC or International Chamber of Commerce as well as other trade organizations
So that other businesses know they are conducting business with someone they can trust, you will also want to join Duns and Bradstreet and get your D&B number you can give your customers.
There are a million other things to consider, and even once you cover all these bases, there are a million other things that you need to be prepared for, like greasing palms. It's just a simple fact of life when doing business internationally. You are going to have to pay people off to get the job done, even here in the US. So having cash on hand is important even in this respect.
I once transacted a deal from the Ukraine for Urea, I was selling to El Salvador. It took me almost 3 months to make happen, I had to pay off people on both sides of the deal all the way down to the supervisor on the dock that scheduled the loading of the ship. I spent 3/4 of my broker fees just in greasing palms to make the transaction happen.
It's a cut throat business, most people unless a major corporation, are fake or outright liars, 99% of the deals never happen, you have to be prepared to travel to the seller to make the deal happen, travel with the material to make sure it actually makes it, pay the authorities where your material lands, pay for inspections, transportation, loading/unloading, insurance, and the list goes on and on and on.
And think about this, you are not the only nor the first person to have this idea, I was shipping HMS and 40ft containers of
e-scrap to China as far back as 1998. If I knew what I know now I would not have been doing it of course, but there you have it.
As much as I enjoyed the travel, and the people I have met and done business with, it's not a business I would relish getting back into. I am glad for the experience. I conduct transactions of these types every once in awhile, for either my own benefit or to help people I have previously done business with in the past in a consultant capacity. But so far as doing it full time, no way.
Hope this helps, I don't mean to be discouraging but it really is a very cut throat business to attempt to break into. And even harder if you are just looking to transact a few deals. Best advice I can offer you is to contact a reputable broker, which there are very few of in the world, and conduct business through them. And before even that I would make an appointment with a world trade bank, and ask to speak with one of their representatives. When I say "trade bank" I am talking about the bank, inside a bank like Wells Fargo for example has a world trade bank and a rep at most major branches you can speak with. HSBC used to be one of the top 10 trade banks, but found that so many of the deals never happen, that they got out of the business all together.
Scott
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Originally Posted by pcscrapper
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