3. Homework at your end

The next thing you should do after you've located the binoculars or telescopes to import is to set up your own business if you don't have one, think over whom you will sell the imports to, and how. 

3.1 Set up an import business
3.2 Conduct market research

3.1. Set up an import business

For those of you who are new in import business, you must set up your import business to import the binocular and telescopes from us. You can set up your business in three ways:
1) as a sole proprietorship where you are solely responsible for all activities of your venture. 
2) forming a partnership, if you have a business partner. 
3) forming a corporation which is a bit complicated and probably not necessary in the beginning for those who start the import business from scratch.

In most cases, in most countries, you will be required to have a business license and perhaps pay sales tax. See your local government agencies for complete information on license requirements in your area. Check with the state chamber of commerce, local trade associations and professional groups for information on licenses and state registration.

It can be a critical step to select a bank that has some import/export experience. And a computer with access to internet and a fax machine are indispensable for your import business.

3.2. Conduct market research

We've seen the customers who become successful, and we've seen the customers whose business fail to survive. After having reviewed all the cases, we've found that there is no uniform success formula, and there is no fixed pattern for "losers". But, in most cases, we find that how they market the binoculars and telescopes makes the difference.

Import business, for the most part, is marketing intensive. Marketing your imports will require a lot of effort and planning on your part. While there are a lot of textbooks and articles from which you can learn on this topic, three aspects of marketing, speaking from our customers' success stories, are probably somewhat more important: know your customers, know your competitors and know yourself, and know how-to on pricing.

Know your customers - identifying the target market

Do you plan to sell to individuals, or to wholesale and retail companies, or by using sales agents? If plan to sell to individuals, what is your target market, amateur astronomers, bird watchers, hunters, sports fans or opera lovers? 

You can sell to all. But, please keep in mind that today's binoculars and telescopes market is hyper-competitive. Usually, if you sell to all, you've to have enough capital to purchase more complete lines of binoculars for different uses, order larger quantity on each model of binoculars to lower down the cost and so to make the prices competitive, and to sell the large stock of binoculars and telescopes, you've to have a bigger budget for advertising. And you'll face up with much more competitions from more segaments..

Or you can focus upon a niche market if you don't think you can afford to sell to all. You'll find that today's binoculars and telescopes market, on the other hand, still has many different customer segments, each having different needs, wants, and characteristics, that need to be approached with a good or service designed to excel in meeting these needs, wants, and interests. Know who your target audience is, that is your perfect customer, you can begin to write your sales copy with a direct focus on their specific wants and needs, and you can focus your advertising campaigns in areas that you know they'll most likely be. You are far better off targeting a well-defined, niche market and dominating it - focusing on those sales that come easily than trying to sell your product to everyone and their pets. 

To get a clear picture of exactly who your target market is, you may need to conduct a market survey. Or if you have already a lot of knowledge about the product and its market, just follow your intuition, and TRY - if failed, refocus, and retry. Persistence is a crucial contributing factor.

know your competitors and know yourself

As the great ancient strategist Sunwu says, know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat.

Find out your competitors. Check out your competitors' web sites and stores. Note down their pricing, products and customer service. Study their strength and weakness. Compare every items to yours, then do better, and excel! Position your goods or service in an unique or different fashion. Strives to be better than your competitors at something that customers value. The key concept is to be special at something that is important to the customer. 

Know how-to on pricing

Firstly, keep in mind that one of YOUR strength is, thanks to the internet, you can now import binoculars and telescopes directly from us. And backed up by us, you can easily enjoy considerable markup and still sell your products at reduced prices even you start with a smaller order quantity. Sometimes, one of the critical ways to survive is on price competition. So, be smart on pricing the binoculars. There are some common pricing techniques as follows:

， evaluating product features and customer benefits
， marking up your cost
， undercutting competitors' prices
， asking key customers
， getting feedback from salespeople
， considering typical customers' "disposable income" 

Suppose your net profit margin is 10%. If you could increase the price of your product by 10% without losing unit-sales, you would double your net profit margin to 20%. A 10% increase in price would increase your profits by 100%. Or let's say that you decrease the price of your product from $209 to $169. If that doubles sales, wouldn't that more than make up for slightly lower margins? 

You've to figure out by yourself what is the prefect price, a perfect price that makes your binoculars and telescopes competitive and maximize your profit at the same time.

You'll need the help of a freight forwarder or customs broker when you make up the total price quotation to the distributor. Not only do you include the CIF (or CNF) price and your commission-usually added together, but you need to include dock and cartage fees, the forwarders fees duty charges, packing charges, or other costs. Be especially careful when you prepare this quotation.  It certainly isn't professional to come back to the distributor with a higher quote including fees you forgot.