Use the customs data to accurately find the buyer -HS code

Without knowing the target company, when developing potential buyers, it is difficult to accurately find buyer information that matches their products. Potential buyers are like an "egg" in the "basket" of customs data. How can we accurately find the one we want? In fact, there are two very important factors that affect our query results.

The first influencing factor: HS coding.
Finding accurate buyer information requires an accurate HS code. Usually, the international standard 6-digit HS code is used to find buyers purchasing similar products, and the query results are not accurate, and there are many mismatched product transaction data. We take the US import data as an example using HS code 854140, and the search results can correspond to the different product descriptions of the three companies.



Why does this happen?
You know that the HS code classification system is developed by the customs. The international standard uses 6 digits. Based on the 6 digits, each country has developed the following digits to further subdivide the types of domestic products. Therefore, when we use HS codes to find companies, Foreign Trade State does not recommend using the first 6 digits to search for products. All products related to the industry can be found using these 6 digits and cannot be targeted to a particular product.

Take India's import data as an example to find the HS code used by India to import plastic toys. First of all, we don't know the precise code used in Indian customs declaration. Now we begin to use the reverse check method. We first search the website through HS code to find out the HS code used by China's import and export plastic toys. Then we only use the first 6 digits of the international standard code to enter the customs data of the Foreign Trade State to view the original bill of lading data. We can see that India imported plastic toys having two different HS codes. We entered the bill of lading records to see the description of the goods, and found that these two types of products are plastic toys.

Through this method, we will find two accurate HS codes for the import of plastic toys by Indian buyers, and we can build a product code classification table similar to the following figure. Record the accurate HS codes of your products in different countries, and then select the HS codes that are most suitable for your products, and then match the buyers we are looking for. Searching to enter the details page of foreign trade companies to view buyer’s information.

Without knowing the exact HS code, we can use the 6-digit code of the product to combine the product description and HS code description on the bill of lading to find out the last few digits to filter out the accurate HS code and then find the matching buyer accurately. Here comes the point! With accurate HS codes, we also need to sort and find potential buyers, which can be roughly divided into 3 categories.

The first type of customer has already purchased our similar products in other countries. Based on the import data of such customers, they can be accurately screened using HS codes and product descriptions.

The second group of customers currently only purchases similar products in their home country but sells them to other countries. The purchase does not go through customs, no customs data is left, and we cannot find customers from import data. But we can also find them precisely by using the export data of the customer's country with product description and HS code.

The third group of customers only purchases similar products in their home country and sells them only locally. The purchase and supply transactions of these customers are local in the country, and no customs data will be left. We cannot use customs data to find such customers. For such customers, we can find them through Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, exhibitions and other channels.