insights

Building Your First Import

Moselle Research Team

Building out your first import order can be a big undertaking, especially if you’re importing a high number of products from multiple suppliers. Since it is quite the extensive process, you’ll want to make sure it’s done correctly, that no steps are missed in order to avoid costly issues, and to minimize back and forth with your busy suppliers.

While building Moselle, we realized that when it came to importing, tracking purchase orders was one of the biggest headaches for a number of small to medium sized businesses. That’s why one of the first things we did was create the PO Tracker. 

During that process, we gathered a few big tips for business owners who import goods to Canada and the USA. We’re taking a few of those nuggets and sharing our collected knowledge so you can save time, and create a more seamless workflow that’s best for you and your suppliers. 

Order in Bulk

By really going big and ordering more, it can help you get higher discounts from suppliers and save a significant amount of money. These discounts are more important than you think when you’re a business owner, this could mean saving money on unexpected costs in the future, putting it towards further marketing efforts and more. 

Though you’re spending more money up front, when you do it correctly you’ll notice that you’re able to cut the cost per unit of your items. It may not seem like it when you see the total itself, but after looking closely you’ll realize the money you’re saving.

We should note though, you’ll only want to do this is your business is stable and has been running for a few years. If you start ordering in bulk from the get-go of your business launching, you may experience issues. So, be patient, grow the business to a stable level and then start ordering in bulk when it makes sense to!

Sometimes in order to scale up your importing operations, you may need additional capital to bridge the gap between the import and sales. Moselle can help you to explore trade financing options available to grow your business. 

Always Be Quick

Now, we’re not talking about responding to suppliers within 5 minutes here, but you do want to make sure you’re sending POs, contracts, emails and any other documents in a timely manner.

Why is this important? Well, your partners/suppliers will respond in the same way by sending invoices, emails and everything in between in the same fashion. By starting this from the beginning with partners, you’ll be able to develop an efficient relationship that is professional and move things forward without missing, or cutting it close to any deadlines.The last thing you want to become is your own bottle neck in driving your business forward. 

Don’t Be Scared To Use Technology

By investing in technology that will help streamline the purchase order process, you’ll be saving a ton of time and you’ll also be minimizing human error. On top of that, using technology can help you track your purchase orders easier and more efficiently. 

With Moselle’s platform you’re able to do just this. You can create and track your POs so that everything’s in one place for you to follow. Getting organized at any point of your business’s journey can make all the difference in your day to day, and future scaling of your business. 

Automate As Much As Possible

If you can automate some of your purchase order workflow, it’s a good idea to do it. By automating part of your workflow you can save a lot of time that can be put towards another area of the business that will help it scale. 

You’ll also be far more efficient which will give you faster processing times so you can quickly get those orders in. It also helps you improve your relationship with suppliers since the entire process will be more seamless and efficient. 

At Moselle, we are consistently working to help make purchase order workflows more efficient for small to medium sized businesses so they can focus on other areas of the business like growth.