Post by Trade facilitator on Jan 24, 2021 17:49:42 GMT 1
This Critical Mistake Could Have Made Me Lose $1,470 In A Single Charcoal Export – Be Careful
When it comes to export of agricultural produce in Nigeria there are a lot of issues that you have to be aware of as an exporter who wants to maintain and grow your integrity. The importers are not there to play with you, they are into serious business, and therefore always act business like. Most of our Nigerian exporters do not know that what they are into is serious business. Just because they have been told that they will earn dollars, they forget that this is a business with its own models and processes.
I have been involved in export of agricultural commodities in Nigeria for many years and I can authoritatively tell you what works and what does not work. When I was naive I made so many mistakes and lost money not because some importers duped me but because of my ignorance.
There was a time we were loading charcoal from Niger state for export and something funny happened. When loading charcoal, you must weigh each bag if you are bagging the product and not pouring into the containers. When we were bagging we did not know that the weighing machine, which we call scale here was faulty. A very costly mistake we made out of carelessness. This is international business; make sure that everything you are using for the business is in top shape.
You should know that the importers are not as careless as some of us are here, that is why they always send you the video during offloading. In fact these days they show you live video of the operations from the port to their warehouse so that you will not be in doubt. Most of our exporters cannot even stream live video; the thought of earning dollars has blocked our reasoning.
Back to our weighing scale, after the weighing we calculated our entire packing list and it added up to 17 metric tonnes, against our expectation of 21 metric tonnes. We have estimated it based on the number of bags we produced, it was a terrible experience. This means that before the goods left Nigeria we had lost about 4 metric tonnes. We put on our thinking cap but could not explain what happened. Do not forget that we had to prepare our invoice based on 17 metric tonnes because that was what we weighed ourselves.
Then the unexpected happened, we did not know that immediately the container enters the port here in Nigeria, the weight of the container will be taken and relayed all over the world’s shipping network. Our weighing was supposed to be the same if our machine was good and in top shape.
When it was weighed at the port, it recorded 21.7 metric tonnes and relayed all over, so there was no hiding place for anybody. The buyer had to discard our packing list, invoice and all our crap and paid us using the international weight recorded. Can you imagine what carelessness could have caused us if it were to be in the days when such facilities were not available?
It could have happened the other way round, if we had over invoiced because of our carelessness, we could have been shouting that the buyer had cheated us. We would be carrying rumors up and down not knowing that we were the culprits. Nigerian exporters need to wake up and do things the right way all the time. The overseas buyers are not careless; therefore we should emulate them and up our game.
I hardly do my export business without visiting my sourcing stations and loading points, the reason being that export of agricultural commodities from Nigeria is a tedious business. If you leave your workers only to carry on the business, you will soon be out of the business, I am talking from experience.
Try and visit once in a while or send a trusted and experienced senior staff if you have one. The temptation to cheat is too much in export of agricultural commodities from Nigeria.
When it comes to export of agricultural produce in Nigeria there are a lot of issues that you have to be aware of as an exporter who wants to maintain and grow your integrity. The importers are not there to play with you, they are into serious business, and therefore always act business like. Most of our Nigerian exporters do not know that what they are into is serious business. Just because they have been told that they will earn dollars, they forget that this is a business with its own models and processes.
I have been involved in export of agricultural commodities in Nigeria for many years and I can authoritatively tell you what works and what does not work. When I was naive I made so many mistakes and lost money not because some importers duped me but because of my ignorance.
There was a time we were loading charcoal from Niger state for export and something funny happened. When loading charcoal, you must weigh each bag if you are bagging the product and not pouring into the containers. When we were bagging we did not know that the weighing machine, which we call scale here was faulty. A very costly mistake we made out of carelessness. This is international business; make sure that everything you are using for the business is in top shape.
You should know that the importers are not as careless as some of us are here, that is why they always send you the video during offloading. In fact these days they show you live video of the operations from the port to their warehouse so that you will not be in doubt. Most of our exporters cannot even stream live video; the thought of earning dollars has blocked our reasoning.
Back to our weighing scale, after the weighing we calculated our entire packing list and it added up to 17 metric tonnes, against our expectation of 21 metric tonnes. We have estimated it based on the number of bags we produced, it was a terrible experience. This means that before the goods left Nigeria we had lost about 4 metric tonnes. We put on our thinking cap but could not explain what happened. Do not forget that we had to prepare our invoice based on 17 metric tonnes because that was what we weighed ourselves.
Then the unexpected happened, we did not know that immediately the container enters the port here in Nigeria, the weight of the container will be taken and relayed all over the world’s shipping network. Our weighing was supposed to be the same if our machine was good and in top shape.
When it was weighed at the port, it recorded 21.7 metric tonnes and relayed all over, so there was no hiding place for anybody. The buyer had to discard our packing list, invoice and all our crap and paid us using the international weight recorded. Can you imagine what carelessness could have caused us if it were to be in the days when such facilities were not available?
It could have happened the other way round, if we had over invoiced because of our carelessness, we could have been shouting that the buyer had cheated us. We would be carrying rumors up and down not knowing that we were the culprits. Nigerian exporters need to wake up and do things the right way all the time. The overseas buyers are not careless; therefore we should emulate them and up our game.
I hardly do my export business without visiting my sourcing stations and loading points, the reason being that export of agricultural commodities from Nigeria is a tedious business. If you leave your workers only to carry on the business, you will soon be out of the business, I am talking from experience.
Try and visit once in a while or send a trusted and experienced senior staff if you have one. The temptation to cheat is too much in export of agricultural commodities from Nigeria.
