Identifying a Reliable Import Export Partner

When you enter the import export business, you need to check out and verify the credentials of the partners with whom you wish to trade. All necessary contact details of the business associates along with their reputation, experience and tenure in the business needs to be verified before you can get into any transaction with them. This is specifically true of any business you conduct over the internet since many scams have come to light and it is always better to take some time and confirm before entering into any arrangement.
Business dealings have to be based on trust and integrity and unless you are sure about your potential business partner, you cannot take the chance of trading with him.
Contacting them over the landline phone and email is one way of checking out their physical presence as the number will be listed along with the address in the phone book. You must make the call to check whether the person in touch with you and claiming to represent a company is indeed working for that organisation. Be wary about dealers or intermediaries who only provide you with a mobile number or email address and is not willing to give you a firm landline number.
You can also make use of any good third party service provider who do a thorough check about such companies and can give you registration details, the nature of the business they are involved in and other important information that would help you arrive at a decision. Checking out sites of manufacturing, trading and credit institutions will also help you eliminate the possibility of fraud.
The credit history bureau report is yet another way of confirming the authenticity of a particular business associate. The credit report can give you details of the potential business partner, the number of years they have been in the business as well as their track record in making payments and financial propriety.
If you cannot find adequate information about a particular business associate, it is likely that they are new and just established. In that case, you must weigh the risk of doing business with them and decide accordingly. You may decide to take the chance and get into a deal with an unknown entity based on some information you have been able to gather, in which case it would be a calculated risk. If it comes off, you would have found yourself a new business partner and will be pleased that your gamble paid off.
Ultimately, it is only by actually meeting the opposite person or by visiting his premises that you can get a good idea about the other party and that will pave the way for more business deals that you can confidently enter into as time goes by.