As a brief introduction of our company, Loyal Agencies, is one the leading and oldest Customs Clearing and freight forwarding company in Pakistan, focused on ‘Imports into Pakistan’ – with offices at Lahore and Karachi. And has been serving Industry Since 1980. We are looking forward to serve you in most professional manner for any of your Import shipments.

We are pleased to announce the service of Live Animal and Pets Customs clearance service at Lahore Airport. Our Customs clearance staff has over 20 years experience in this field and would make sure that Live animal or your beloved Pet is customs cleared without any delay and delivered safely to your home. So If you are moving from Abroad to Lahore, Pakistan with your pet then Loyal Agencies would be your best choice for its safe and timely Customs release and door delivery to your home. Feel free to contact us at below numbers.

Tel: 9242 3 7239214 – 92 300 9415682 or email: info@loyalpk.com

We may also introduce you to Imitation Jewelry exporters in India, if you are new in this business. For complete details in regard to Shipping and Customs Clearance for your cargo from India to Pakistan. Please contact us at below numbers. Or simply fill out the Inquiry form in the right sidebar.

Our Contact: email: info@loyalpk.com Tel: 042-3723 9214 (Attn: Mr. Akhtar Abbas).

We assure you to provide Quick and cost-effective service, From Pickup in China to Door Delivery here at Lahore.

Plan:

Every good businessman needs to have a plan. For a businessman, a plan is like a sketch-up of the start-up business he/she will be starting or a plan on what he or she intends to do with the business. A mockup plan is very vital for the success of any business startup.

A plan allows the businessman to solve issues and some pre-starting issues before even confronting them. For example, if someone is opening up an import/export business, a plan will be developed regarding what he/she will be importing/exporting, how much capital does the person have, what the price of each commodity is, and what an average profit for will be on the basis of simpler prices.

This will allow you to ensure that you do not end up with your money at the bottom of the pit hole with you looking down at, with regret – which will eventually lead you to cross off any future business plans, just because you lost once, you’ll end up mentally thinking u’ll fail at all others as well.

Plus, a start up plan allows you to keep yourself one notch above your competitors as you’ll probably know what they do best, and you shall devise a plan that takes their weaknesses and turns them into your business’s strengths.

Determination and Patience:

Once of the biggest reasons I’ve seen for people failing in the business sector is because they are neither determined nor patient.

A person might start an Import/Export business, and start with small stuff as can be done with the capital in hand, however, the person may not pay full attention to it and keep it as a side business, and just do a few contracts of here and there, and at a time lose interest in the field and shut the business down. Wrong.

If you start a business, keep yourself attached to it. Consider it your body. Without your body you cannot live, without a business you cannot survive. That’s how it should be, if you want a sucessful and prospering business.

Being determined, working hard and having patience are the 3 vital principals of a successful business. Neither does money come over night, nor does sucess. It comes with time, and patience only. As you keep on doing your business, it eventually grows, gains a spotlight in the market, and the spotlight keeps getting bigger and bigger until your contracts get more difficult; yet with more pay in return. More pay, is more profit.

So, if you start an Import/Export business don’t expect to get a huge contract just overnight, that is just plain wrong. Start small, and work your way to the top. If it were so easy to make money and get rich overnight, I think everyone would be doing it then.

Protect Yourself:

Every business has one final main goal: making a profit. And profit is somehow directly proportional to the money invested in a business for the starting periods and later periods.

Most business are either sole proprietorships or partnerships. And most of them expose their owners to liability for business debts and loses. The fact that your savings, and personal assets are put to the risk makes this a difficult land to venture on, and a hard game to play.

This is exactly why a person must form a corporation or limited liability corporation (LLC). These will give the person a shielding from personal liability but however there are other rules and regulations that need to be followed with this. However, your personal assets and savings accounts are at least kept in a safe zone and not in harms way in case bad luck befalls the business.

Another way to protect yourself is by contracts. True, most of the small business go around doing deals with a mere “handshake”, but that is not how it should be. Set up a boundary in the plan after which you will not deal without a legal contract. For example, in the case of an Import/Export business

A Legal Contract if the value of consignment is worth Rs. 50,000 or above
If the dealer is abroad or new whom the market knows not of

This way if the dealer defunct, at least you can file a legal case under the “Law of Contract” and see to it that you are given fair judgement. And if not full, damages (monetary compensation) can be payed to ensure that your business does not take a harsh blow in its starting stages.

Stay Small But Effective:

At times it does not depend if you have a small business. Many people can make the most profits out of their small businesses.

To do so, one needs to be in touch with the market, and keep a very close lookout for the competitors and what they are doing. It is vital for the company to keep one notch above them so as to get most of the customers and dealings.

However, at times its not always about the product, but people prefer if your services are good, your PR is amazing, and your customer satisfaction levels are high! So, you could focus on your companies PR and services offered to people to get the most out of the people. For example, for an Import/Export business:

Offering quality assurance unlike competitor, or transportation at a cheaper rate than your rival company giving you a clear edge

And the final things…

Don’t stop trying. Keep on going as you are. Business is something where you put a risk and you either gain or lose money. There is no person in this world that has not ever lost money in a business, so if you actually end up losing some, don’t lose heart – rather learn from your past mistakes for that is what makes you a better businessman

Always keep a close eye on the market. Analysis and judgement is something that will get you ahead of the market. If you don’t want to wait, just keep going with something that has been trending and will keep trending for some period of time so that you can make enough profit allowing u to change business next time the trend changes, if it does.

For example, and Import/Export business would do good in trending things like:

Constructions Materials: The world is always developing
Cars: The world is always buying car as the standard of living develops
Food: Something u need to research first before indulging in
Household Items: They are always in demand.

Contrary to common conception promoting your business online is much cheaper than it is in real life. However it requires a great deal of skills and knowledge to use the Internet and various other Web apps, or Web services. For instace Email is the most commonly used web service over the Internet. However most users sign up with a Free email services like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail and you might be surprised that it costs only $10 per year to register a domain and have an email address which represents you and your company i.eyou@yourcompany.com again it’s not the cost issue, for this to happen you would have to learn basic skills to set up a domain. You can buy a Domain from NameCheap one of the most inexpensive and reliable domain registrars over the Internet and our own domain is hosted with them as well. You love Gmail so do we, and did you know you can use Gmail with your own domain too and without any extra cost. It’s Free for first 50 Email accounts, If you are a small company you won’t ever exceed that limit. Here is the link to Setup Gmail with your own domain. More over you can search over Google for any information that you may need during this process. Once you have created a domain and an email account for you. Your customers are likely to put more trust in you and your company than before. Most of the communication in the business takes place via Email, so you must realize the importance of registering your own Domain and email. It’s the first step forward for promoting your business online. Next Step would be to setup a Website for your company. It’s kindda more techy business and for this purpose you might need to hire someone. However If don’t want to bother enough then you can setup a free website in your Domain name through Google’s Blogger service. It won’t be an awesome website but it’s still better than no Website at all. You can find complete details here to Setup Google Blogger service with your Domain name. Once you have completed above steps then you have the basic presence over the Web, it’s the start of the promotion of your business online. And it would all cost you just a mere $10 per year.

3. Useful Websites, Web applications for Business Promotion:
Alibaba.com is the world largest B2B website. It offers both Free and Paid accounts, for a small sized company you won’t ever need their Paid account, with the Free account you can create a catalog of your Products or services upto 50 and promote your services or products in their Marketplace, you would quickly get the inquiries from this site. It’s mostly useful for Export companies however Importers also can benefit from it by finding the good source of their supplies. Also there are plenty of scam companies which might pretend to sell you Quality for too cheap price. Good rule of thumb is, If someone offers you BMW car at the price of a Motor Bike then you must suspect something fishy! In addition to Alibaba there are plenty of other B2b Websites which you can search on Google try to create your account on all of them and promote your business and services. In addition to B2B sites, more recently social networking websites such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are proving to be a good source of both promoting your business and keeping in touch with your business contacts. Most of the frequent users of the Internet use these websites everyday, so it’s good idea to create a Fan page for your company on the Facebook as well as setup a company Profile at Linkedin, it does not cost anything, you are free to create Fan pages for your company. The idea is to get your business introduced to as many people as possible, more people know about you and your business better it is for your business. Lastly we at Loyal are huge fan of Dropbox it offers you free 2GB space to store your important documents, images, video etc, and it gets installed on your computer, iPhone and Android Phone too. It’s very handy service. You can sync your computer with Dropbox Web servers to store all of your important data. If you need more space you can always upgrade to their paid accounts!

4. Paid Online Advertising.
In addition to above free promotions, you can also use Paid Advertising to promote your business online, However it roughly requires a min. Budget of $250-$500 per month for an effective promotion. For this purpose you can use the Internet’s Most popular and widely used Advertising Program Google Adwords. You are in total control of your promotion using Adwords, it’s basically based on the Bidding system (Higher you bid more your ads appear on the Internet). In addition to this you can also choose in what country, city or even a specific town your ads appear. For instace if you are a local business Selling Computers you would prefer your Ads to appear to the Internet users of your local city or where your potential buyers are. Moreover you can search Google to learn more on the Google Adwords Program.

Phew! It’s just the basic guide, we tried to keep it as simple as possible, In futue we would try to cover more advanced tips for promoting your business online. If you liked it don’t forget to share or forward this to your co-workers or friends.

Making a personal website for your brand, services holds great importance for your services/brand. This is because in the modern “Age of Technology” Internet is becoming one of the most used things out there.

Getting your name in the spotlight and on the Internet not only allows you to deal with a worldwide customer base but also allows you to compete with your competitors. It gives you that edge, which is required to stay 1 step ahead.

Consider it this way, if you are importer and want to import stuff, you could put your website online and state in which areas you operate. This way, the people of that area and others could find you and then contact you asking if you can possibly import something.

Not only that, but companies and multinational organizations can easily look up on the Internet in search for a more economical importer, and you just might make it on the list. Since the communication link is the Internet, the costs of snail-mail, phone, etc are cut off making your process more economical.

In this big business, even a small amount of saving can amount to a huge one later on in the future.

Making an e-Commerce Website:

Considering you do not have a warehouse, and want to start off with an importing business, you could look up into e-Commerce facilities. There are many advantages of an e-Commerce way of dealing over a traditional “order-and-deliver” way of dealing with imports. However, it of course comes with its own disadvantages as well.

Here are a few main advantages of E-Commerce website dealings, also let me remind you that an e-Commerce website is different from a person service / brand website:

The costs of a huge warehouse are cut off. Instead, you can keep items in a smaller rented warehouse located in a cheaper vacinity
Since it is an electronic-Commerce website, the range of products can be expanded to a variety of products
The capital required is a lot less since usually at the start an e-Commerce website will start off with a bunch of products only (lets say 50) and then expand slowly over a period of time; both in product line and coverage
Focus on niche market is possible to a greater extent
However, there are a few disadvantages to it also. To name a few:

At the start you may not be able to avail trade discounts, or bulk order discounts since your orders will be in smaller quantities
Profits will be a lot less than on a large scale in the beginning, but later on may become even greater and consistent
In a country like Pakistan, electricity is a problem – so you will need to invest in a generator / UPS to keep your servers running so your website is 24/7 active. You will also need to give it regular maintenance to keep it fast and cope with inbound traffic to ensure top-notch customer satisfaction
A great example of is Homeshopping.pk, while they are a retailer, they have a separate website by the name of “youpickwebuy.com” where a person can choose electronic, or any other products from sites such as Amazon or eBay and chose the quantity and the folks over at HSN will become liable on importing it for you, considering the quotation is accepted by you and order placed.

Using Social Media Websites – Gaining Exposure:

Use the Internet to your advantage and use services like Facebook and Twitter to communicate and find customers for your brand/service. This will also boost customer satisfaction and PR as people will know that you are a legit importer and have a fan-base following.

Also, keeping in touch with your customers and giving out Internet-discounts, etc will allow for brand royalty, where a specific customer will only place orders from your company as it has grown accustomed to your dealings and way of working, and also because they know you are “good at what you do”.

This will also give the brand an edge over its competitors if they do not deal with orders from the Internet, and/OR do not reply to queries posted on their Facebook Page, or sent to them through Twitter.

Stalking Competitors Website:

What makes you different from the competitor? You have no idea, since you just can’t spend the resources (time and money) in stalking the process of your competition without keeping your own alive.

An easier way to stay one step ahead of your competition is to look at your competitors website and see what services they are offering and maybe even order a small quotation to look at their prices.

This will give you a major advantage over your rivals and allow you to expand and improve in places where they lack, giving you the hold of the market which currently they do not support. Considering your services are better, and quality assured, more and more people will order from you – since you have more services from your rival.

An example:

Maybe your rival does not Import Household items, or construction material and only deals in Automobiles. Also, maybe they only deal with people in a specific location. To counter this, you could expand to the areas where their services are not available and also open up the import of one of the items which currently they do not offer.

Last but not least is the fact that you need to make a plan and some earlier decisions which will shape the outcome of your business. If you have not already read our previous article, do read the Basic Guide to Start Import – Export Business in Pakistan. It will give u a basic insight for a new start-up in Pakistan.

Using those tips, and the tips given here for the use of Internet, make a start-up and keep focused on your objective and mission plans and you will find success sooner or later. Success does not come overnight nor is it meant for only a few people, anyone can achieve it as long as they know what they are doing and do that with passion, hard work and patience.

You may either fill out the Inquiry Form in the right sidebar, or just send us an email at: info@loyalpk.com or Call our Cell Phone: 0300-9415682 for Immediate assistance.