Articles Tagged with: Bigfoot Imports

Livin’ the Life! – Outdoor Living from Bigfoot Imports

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Umbrellas

All Weather Wicker

Wood Products

Wrought Iron, Zero Gravity, Park Bench, Camo & Camping

Planters and Vases

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Patio-in-a-Box™ and Instant Patio™

Umbrella Base and Furniture Covers

Looking for Indoor furniture? click here for RelaxStation

Is Chinese New Year that big of a deal to USA retailers?

I wish I had a dollar for every customer that asked me that question. Most Americans can’t begin to understand how big of a deal that the Chinese New Year is to Asia. It’s just a holiday right? Not at all, the whole country shuts down for about 2-3 weeks. The countries and territories that celebrate along with China include Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam (TET).

· Families pour out money for gifts, decorations and food.

· Completely clean the house to get rid of any bad luck from the previous year.

· Decorations fill the houses, windows and doors with popular sayings such as wealth, healthy, happy.

· Firecrackers will light up the skies.

· Children receive money in red paper envelopes wishing them wealth and a happy new year.

· Niangao, the New Year cake that is like a pudding.

The official holiday lasts for 15 days, but it can take up to 3 weeks for a factory to get started back into production. One of the main issues for factories is that their workers are from towns that are very far away from the factory. They will travel by bus, motorbike or anything they can find to get them to their hometown to celebrate with their family. Even though the factory owner may tell the workers to come back on a certain day, they may come back days later, killing production times. It’s not easy for factory owners to find workers and so they have to let this slide to get their skilled workers back to work.

As an importer, we have to warn our customers of the impending black hole in the universe called “Chinese New Year”. It’s just a time that you don’t want to waiting on orders to complete or start. We try and get all of our orders in the factories in time to be finished a few weeks BEFORE CNY, so that we don’t run into any problems. If the customer wants their product right after CNY it will almost always be late. Key planning is the key for your importer to walk you through before the worst-case scenario.

With all that being said, it’s a wonderful holiday and wish all of you could enjoy this celebration even if it’s only in your local China town. We could all use some good fortune from the economy that has drained many companies in the USA and abroad.

Happy New Year from Bigfoot Imports

Christmas a shot to the wallet!

Christmas is a welcome site for retail business owners. It was really a good feeling for us as a company to see all of our retail stores busy for the holiday season. Christmas shopping dollars can make or break some stores in the USA. In 2010 spending was up over 50%, which was an incredible jump from 2009. The stats for 2011 aren’t as positive as they dropped around 2%, with average spending from $658 down to $646.

holiday shoppers

holiday shoppers

Catalog purchasing is really jumping up as consumers just don’t want to spend gas and transportation money to go out and get those presents. Online purchasing is up to 43% and internet shopping down slightly to 37% from last year. As a buyer or owner, finding the best products for the best price is mandatory to keep your position or your business.

We at Bigfoot Imports are constantly searching for new factories to bring the quality and pricing that you expect to keep the sales coming strong. Please feel free to contact us for exciting new products and 2013 retail pricing.

We wish that you finish a strong 2011 season!

Contact us at http://bigfootglobal.net/contact-us

Coffee from Vietnam…delicious!

I had the opportunity to visit some coffee manufacturers in Vietnam. Vietnam exports 1.13 million tons of coffee each year and that is second only to Rice as an agricultural export. Brazil still tops the charts as far as the largest exporter of coffee, but Vietnam is second in this category. If you’ve ever visited Vietnam, you would know that you can’t throw a paper cup without hitting a coffee shop. The coffee shops are from very humble small shops with plastic chairs and small little tables to the very high end with velvet high back chairs and statues. The Vietnamese really love coffee and it shows up in their everyday life. One of my favorite coffee drinks is called cà phê sữa đá or iced coffee. The way for English speakers to sound this word out would sound like our words Cafe Soda. This is coffee with finely ground Vietnamese-grown dark roast coffee individually brewed with a small metal French drip filter (cà phê phin) into a cup containing about a quarter to a half as much sweetened condensed milk, stirred and poured over ice.

Vietnam Coffee Bigfoot Imports

Vietnam Coffee importer

Vietnam Coffee Export

Vietnam Coffee Inspection

Vietnam Coffee Producers

Vietnamese Coffee bags

Vietnam Coffee manufacturers

Vietnam Coffee Manufacturers

coffee shop vietnam 2

coffee shop pleiku

coffee shop saigon

saigon coffee shop

ca phe sua da

cafe sua da

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We have had many requests regarding importing Vietnamese coffee to the USA. We have a very good option for you to do this through some of our new coffee producers in Vietnam. One challenge in importing coffee from Vietnam is that there are not many growers who will sell small amounts for export. Most of them sell thousands of containers per year all over the world and won’t accept any small orders, which would slow them down and lose money. We can help with some smaller container orders, just contact us at 765-497-3668 for more information on MOQ’s.

Vietnam the next China?

Vietnam or China?

I have heard many people speculate on what country will be the next in line to be the next “hot” sourcing spot for importing products to the USA or abroad. There are many that come to mind such as; Vietnam, India, Africa, just to name a few. I really want to focus on Vietnam today as that is a country that I believe has great potential.

Vietnam has many promising features, such as, natural resources, inexpensive/abundant labor force and a Western friendly attitude. I love traveling to Vietnam and my wife being a native from there, it’s a place that holds family and friends. With all of the pros that Vietnam offers, there are a couple negatives that really limit it’s future options.

Vietnam traffic at night

Vietnam traffic at night

The traffic is terrible! As you can see in this picture of a normal night out in town in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). It’s almost impossible at times to transport items to the ports. The country is seemingly 10-15 years behind the USA in many ways. It’s kind of like being in a time warp in some areas. There is also very little automated machinery or up-to-date automated machinery. The overall supply chain is just years behind China as well, which is the biggest issue I believe. They don’t have the sophisticated systems in place to really handle a lot of production.

Some of the great products that are made in Vietnam are wood furniture of al kinds, handcrafted products, cutting and sewing of fabric and many other options as well.

Call us to find out what types of products that Vietnam can help your company.

765-497-3668