An old contacts company is now key to my future plans and will contact him when I have my phone up and running which should or better be this week.
I was reminded of this topic over the weekend when I visited the UK Emporium which is a family run retail business importing various products from the UK. The visit this time was to fetch some Easter eggs for my grand children as the local selection is rather boring. However this time around the shop had none due to supply chain difficulties which was interesting to hear the owner say things have deteriorated.
The website shows 54 marked down products and I can assure you those numbers have risen considerably as it has to be 75% of the entire shop marked down.
Most of the products being sold in the shop were now marked down as they had taken so long to reach their destination the sell by date was at risk or had expired in the worst cases. Great for the likes of myself as I pay no attention to sell by dates as long as the price has been seriously reduced making it worthwhile. As a guesstimate I would say over 75% of all the goods on offer were marked down which is a terrible sign and kid of feel sorry for the owners. They are open for business, but have been severely handicapped by the circumstances they now find themselves in.
Back to the original title of the post which is the grey market and an interesting topic at that. I have always paid attention to various products having lived in different countries as these create prime opportunities.
One day I was at the Walthamstow market next to the Grey Hound dog racing track in East London, England. This market was known for having serious good deals as most of the items had fallen off the back of trucks (stolen) and was often raided by the police.
This day what caught my eye was the soft drinks on sale as they had the 3 rings at the base of the can and that I knew as South African. After a closer inspection the drinks were definitely not local and like in any country the Coca Cola and the various variants tasted different to what you are used to. I was told it was due to the water when I had quizzed the MD of Coca Cola South Africa after a chance meeting being joint sponsors of a sporting event.
Over the coming months I paid attention when visiting my clients stores and noticed even the wholesalers had large supplies of South African Coca Cola. The price difference made sense as South Africa was cheap in comparison to the UK prices. Finding a product that had volume with a significant price gap meant you had an instant business over night.
This got me thinking and actually wrote a list of grey items that would be a hit that was not available in the UK, but would sell very well. Things like variants of Kellogg's cereals and other Coca Cola products that were still not available or widely available. Some still aren't which is odd as I know they would still sell very well and have a short window of taking advantage.
I was doing some importing whilst in the UK, but non food related and had no idea my shipping contact a certain Patrick Knibbs was behind the grey imports of Coca Cola. We had become close friends over the years and after raising the topic we got chatting about this and it was a fascinating listen.
The first few months was simple business as no one expected 50 containers of coca cola to hit the UK. This was followed by another 50 containers of a mix with Coca Cola being the main seller. South Africa Coca Cola had not questioned the first two deliveries but things changed as the UK arm of Coca Cola threatened the SA arm threatening to pull their licences. Each production plant has to look out where their product is heading as this could easily derail another countries production.
Patrick was being quizzed when he placed his third order and was only allowed once he showed the destination port was non UK. He had chosen Russia the furtherest point he could find that was still truckable to throw them off the scent. By the time it had landed in Russia Coca Cola knew Patrick was now behind this and was offered a deal to dump it in Eastern Europe whereby he would still make a decent return. SA Coca Cola was worried this product was heading to the UK and they were correct with their assumptions.
These days I wish I had spent more time with Patrick as he was so switched on and would have been a fantastic teacher. Thinking of what I already know and who I know it would be foolish not to take advantage of the grey markets. Not only is this rewarding, but a hell of a lot of fun as it is a game of cat and mouse on steroids.
Patrick is still around and will meet up at the soonest possible point when I travel to the UK soonish. I have some ideas of various products that are super inflated currently and finding these products at the ight prices will not be difficult if you look in the right countries.
