Export Pricing & Costs

The fastest way to lose money on an export order is to quote your domestic price with freight added. An export price has to absorb the distributor margin, the retailer margin, duty, certification and label work, currency movement between quote and payment, and the cost of being paid sixty or ninety days after the container leaves.

These guides work through that build-up in the order it actually matters: what your Incoterm silently commits you to, what a distributor needs to earn for your product to be worth their shelf space, which payment terms are normal in a market versus which ones are a warning sign, and how to hold a price when a large buyer pushes.

Price is also positioning. A number set low to win the first order tends to become the ceiling for every order after it, because the buyer anchors on what they already paid.