Exporting To Australia - Breaking The Down Under Market

Introduction 

Breaking into the Australian import market, too many exporters this is an untapped gem, with a very unique market due to the multi-cultural nature of Australia and this mix of cultures creates a very unique opportunity. So I guess the important thing to understand, is how one creates long-lasting relationships, develops networks of buyers, and competes with Australia’s biggest exporter China. First understand China is not as competitive as one thinks, especially with how China has recently threatened the Australian agriculture industry and used its political points to create a rift in the nations. China is easy to beat these days, with increased labor costs, disruptions in shipping ability, and the lack of consistency in quality leaving room to move in. 

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Focusing On High-Quality Production 

China does cheap we all know that, but China also does quality, which to many importers is the reason to continue business and this is the understanding. Australian culture wants one thing, fair value, if I get a good product, for a fair price I will always buy it again. 

High Quality Or Cheap

Quality, quality, quality is the cry of Australian businesses, there is no fear bigger for small to medium-sized enterprises, as being labelled as selling cheap Chinese products, and in Australia, this is paramount to brand suicide. As while many companies/ businesses do buy cheap Chinese products, most major retailers predominantly sell products originating from China. This does not mean that consumers want that, the average Australian consumer wants high-quality products for a good price and Australian businesses will pay a higher price for goods because we can charge our consumers higher prices. The shift in product-based businesses has shifted to an emerging market of high-quality goods, the reason for this is competing for cheap is too easy these days and no one can compete with the purchasing power of K-Mart or Big W two major retailers who offer low-quality products cheaply. For competitive businesses, there is more room to offer high-value products at higher than market prices, as they are more unique than, low-quality products that have flooded the shelves and opened the market for new exporters to enter the market. 

Why Is Cheap The Worst Choice For Aussies 

Ask any Australian what they think of made in China, and you will get the same response, cheap garbage, the reason for this is because of false and misleading advertising. Unfortunately with the rise of e-commerce, there was not also a rise in ethics, and businesses were quick to mislead consumers to believe they offered high-quality products cheaply. Why because the price of labor in China is so cheap, they have many factories, their able to produce so many items and we purchase such large quantities we get the best prices. Unfortunately, this is all lies, while there are many amazing manufacturers in China, for the average Australian business, we never see that, what we get is the con-men and all the promises in the world for quality. But it is never a reality, this is why Australian businesses if they have been burnt before, never lead with how cheap their options are because that will lead them to turn and run in the opposite direction. 

Don’t Compete With China Out Compete China 

China doesn’t compete in the quality game, China expects importers to know their customs and cultural differences without assistance. In Australia, we believe in the fair go, which means I will believe you, but under deliver or mislead me and our business will end immediately. This is the Australian culture to give you an honest go, but in many cultures, and even inside Australian cultures there are those who look to take advantage of genuineness. If you want to out-compete China understand the fair go, talk the lingo, respect the importers, and believe me you won’t even need to compete with another. Typically Australians are laid back, easy going, life in Australia is difficult enough with nature, we want the business to be straightforward and easy to say what you mean and mean what you say. 

What Do Buyers Look For In Products 

Australian businesses look to get high-quality products, but more importantly, they want easy relationships where there is equal give and take in achieving their business goals. Remember why is someone buying your product, it’s to solve their need or their consumer's need and it’s important to understand in small countries we see our neighbors more. This means in business while 24 million people are no small number, there is a cultural identity about a fair go, true blue, and what that means. If I know my product is not going to benefit my consumer or I can’t guarantee the quality why would I sell it? Because if I mislead others I am breaking the fair go or true blue aspect of Australian culture and by doing this I no longer am a part of that culture. Australians care more about their reputation than making a quick buck because being honest and being genuine is who we are.  

What Do Australian Companies Worry About 

The main worry for Australian businesses is negatively damaging their brand and image as for many businesses this is a very hard-won battle. Australian businesses are more protective of our brands, because of how ingrained in the culture honesty and loyalty are. To an Australian business owners looking to import products to sell, they worry about how do I compete with the large companies, who have endless marketing budgets, endless resources, and higher quality production at lower costs. Australian businesses are looking to pivot to higher quality, ethically sourced, and environmentally conscious supply chains. While no one is perfect, zero emissions don’t exist and Australian businesses are happy with exporters who try their best in this area. The reason for this is, we are a culture connected to our land, even in the cities around Australia, land, nature, environmental changes, and pollution reduction are in focus for Australian consumers. This means businesses that want to operate in the future and compete with large companies, need to focus on consumer sentiment over short-term gains, and if you understand the Australian consumers you understand Australian business's worries.  

Solving Their Problems Not Becoming Their Problem 

If to Australian businesses their biggest concerns revolve around customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Then to avoid becoming their latest problem to face is quite easy, you are the expert in your product, you understand your manufacturing process for your products and most of all if you focus on only offering high-quality products to Australian businesses. Then you advertently meet their consumer's needs, putting their mind at ease, which allows them to service more consumers, and this results in high purchase orders where you dictate the price. The aim is to be competitively priced in comparison to Australian companies, which gives you the ability in the local currency to increase your profit margins and build strong long-lasting relationships.

Building Strong Relationships 

The strength of the foundation of any business relationship, regardless of cultural differents, is respect and trust. If I respect you to a high level in all of our engagements, the result is you will like to be around me because your personal need to feel seen has been acknowledged, and if I consistently take small actions to meet and exceed your expectations. Well it’s only a matter of time before you trust me to carry out any task, the reason for this is I am consistently showing large volumes of small actions, that allow you to develop an understanding of what the expected outcome should be with me and this makes your life easier more predictable. This in turn means your interactions with mean will require less mental effort, which because of natural ways of developing we seek simple and easy ways of achieving our goals. 

How Do Australians Build Relationships 

As mentioned earlier, Australian culture revolves around the concepts of fair go or fair value and true blue or genuine. Regardless of ethnicity, all Australians to some degree believe in these values, as they are core aspects of the diverse multi-cultural ness of Australia and without these two shared values. It would be difficult for people to co-exist, this is not a unique trait only in Australia, but all areas where people who hold different views or cultural beliefs will require this understanding. As failure to understand these values would lead to prejudice, exclusionary civil structuring and eventually end in an inability to cohesively co-exist. Understand that if you lead with these values when interacting with Australian businesses, you will naturally move quicker to being on the same page and it will allow you to remain in contact even if you don’t win the business immediately.  

How To Relate To Australians’ Instantly 

The key in one word is respect, if you approach an Australian with respect, regardless of how they feel they must treat you with the same respect or be seen as disrespectful to Australians unless they have a grievance against you. We don’t want to be treated disrespectfully, so we show that courtesy when showing that respect first and if you understand this simple action. Then in the first seconds of your engagement, you will be in full control, because that level of mutual respect has been shown, and for any that don’t repay the respect you give them. They are letting you know that they are the type of people, who when it suits them will go against you and you are an expert in what you do so you don’t want them. 

The Longview Looking 10 Years Down The Road

In today’s business culture, there is this trend of short-term relationships, with no lock-in contracts and this has promoted a very transient business relationship matrix. When I do business with you until I find a cheaper option, I don’t worry about the relationship because of how impersonal e-commerce has made business transactions and this idea of not needing to invest in strong long-term relationships is crazy. Would you like to know the unseen truth, and the hidden gem in only ever talking as if this relationship has gone on for 10 years, and even if it’s my first engagement I treat them as if this is our 1000th engagement? 

Because what I realized is, looking back into your life, if we me on a cruise, how inclusively would you talk to me, as you know this has a set end date, and the truth is you would limit the depth of our conversations. As it would seem pointless to, explain all of the details of your stories and thoughts you would more than likely keep it superficial but friendly. This is the exact thing we do when we only ever focus on this contract or selling this product, when developing the relationship we only focus on superficial small talk, and when we focus on long-term relationships we want to know the details as they give the story color. When we focus on developing long-term relationships, we naturally invest more into our relationship, building higher trust and developing higher levels of rapport. This is vital when our business relationship is threatened by competition, it is this trust and rapport that will in the end win us the business. 

Do Aussies Like To Wheel & Deal 

Who doesn’t love getting your product for cheaper, giving you larger profits, though to say this, would you have larger profit’s if you had to give your consumers all discounts? The answer is no Australian business owners have only been introduced to bartering, but all in turn dread the fact that they will constantly be asked to drop their prices and this means they ask you to drop your prices. Say to them simply is that how you make your profits, if the answer is yes, ask them for pointers, and if the answer is no explain to them the price is the price. If $15 dollars is too expensive per unit for 10,000 units, maybe they won’t be in business long enough for you to develop a prosperous relationship with them. The future of the import, e-commerce, and retail sectors, relies more on the shift back to quality, as their consumers’ sentiment has shifted with the unregulatedness of the Chinese exports market. This has led more businesses to look for external markets to purchase products from or they will tend to use large distribution services to ensure quality at higher prices.

How To Lose Respect Without Knowing 

The quickest way to lose respect with a buyer, especially an Australian buyer, is to not listen to what they are saying, why push someone into a call? They will only lose respect for you as, if I don’t want your product, you trying to convince me will only lead me to become confrontational and this will only cause conflict in the relationship. Find out your buyer's needs, five of their immediate problems, find easy quick solutions to their problems, and when you talk to them. If they reject your offer on the cuff remark about an immediate problem they have, how you’ve just solved a similar issue for another company, and how simply if they gave you a fair go you could solve their problems. That is how you communicate with an Australian business owner, you plan for them to initially reject your offer because of mistrust in the mark and you develop ways to give them value to build their trust. 

Common Ways Aussies Respond To Foreign Companies 

To the average Australian consumer or business owner, everyone that calls is a scam, period, point blank, even Australian businesses struggle with this issue and the reason is that Australia is targeted by every sounding country and even Australians as well. Most countries are the same, unfortunately, what this means is the number one goal in the first engagement is to just introduce yourself and offer a solution to a problem then end the engagement. This allows you to demonstrate your value, collect their email for future communication, agree to a first communication, and have a reason to follow up in 2 weeks giving them time to build trust. By default, scammers would not do this because they rely on manipulation and fear to control people. Whereas if you offer value, asking for nothing, solving their problem, leaving them a way to contact you, and then reaching out in the future with a potential offer for business. You will have a higher success rate, build stronger relationships, develop trust, and never have to discount your product's worth. 

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Developing Trust Through Offers 

Developing trust with potential importers is difficult in the best of times and it is hard to get an honest engagement with potential consumers especially when cultural differences are present. This is why it is vital to focus on developing small actions or offers that are aimed at building trust, and over selling a product, as this will lead to you becoming an authority in any industry and if you confidently know the value of your company. You will effectively capture Australian business owners' attention, as part of Australian culture when interacting or building relationships is a notion of competence and being able to deliver on what you say you will. Know this an Australian won’t tell you when your actions don’t align with your words, they will just ignore you, and if you push the matter become highly combative with you. Australians enjoy fighting, as we are conditioned through our harsh environments and through our unhealthy obsession with alcohol. 

Make Only Serious Offers 

Only ever makes serious offers, if you come to me with an overpriced product, with the intention of using a massive discount to win my business, you will lose on the instant your discount. Because you are showing me that was your intention all alone, only come with a serious offer, be willing to negotiate, and make sure that you serve your own needs first. As if I am your best client, we have been doing business for 10+ years, if you hit adversity, it’s up to you to get yourself out of it, no other business will help you, this leads to you need to protect your interests in all contracts and for your potential client to do the same to reach a profitable outcome for all. 

Create Ways To Demonstrate Your Consistency 

Think about it like this, you are a mechanic, I am helping you fix a car and I have a deep understanding of how you go about fixing cars. What I am able to do is use my understanding of your approach, simple probability, and likelihood of outcome matrices, to effectively and efficiently anticipate your needs in terms of required tools. I am able to consistently hand you tools as you require them, I am able to monitor your progress, and if you miss something I am able to draw your attention to it. Just the same when you understand your potential clients, offing information or knowledge without asking for anything in return leads people to rely on you and become accustomed to your demonstrated value.  

Create A Process Of Small Steps To Victory Not Giant Leaps 

If you can shift your perspective in your interactions from short-term to long-term and price sensitive to quality-orientated then you will see the step you need to take. The goal is to have reasons that you contact them, but also take every engagement to demonstrate your respect for their values and interests now you don’t need to share them. But you do need to respect that to this person it means something to them and if you want to respect them you need to respect their opinion. This is the quickest path to success in any business interaction. 

Respect Your Client & Anticipate Their Needs 

Like mentioned previously, when we respect our clients at a high level, we need to understand their problems as if they were our own and we need to focus on understanding their perspective. These two aspects allow us to easily anticipate their physical problems or needs, their emotional problems or needs, and allow us to develop genuine solutions to their situation. This allows us to strengthen the bonds within our business relationships. If you focus on serving your potential clients' best interests, and if you communicate effectively and with a genuine tone they will become your new clients. 

Only Offer High Quality Options Leave The Low Quality To Someone Else 

Leave the low-quality offers to low-quality businesses, only ever offer Australian businesses high-quality offers, as you will only get higher profits and develop stronger relationships assisting you in establishing yourself in a new market. If you focus on competing with others competition is hard, if you out-compete everyone else, you have less competition and the key is to focus on being your best and businesses will align with you. Focus on self-mastery of your process, product, teams, and company culture. Identify which Australian industries align with you, develop your offers with them in mind, and exceed their expectations to win more business. 

Focus On Being The Highest Quality & Charge Accordingly 

When you are an expert you name your price, when you focus on delivering high quality with expert opinion, you now have the authority necessary to develop your brand in the right way. A big secondary benefit of only offering high-quality products is the organic boost that your brand naturally receives and the increase of ease with which you win new business. Remember this the higher quality of your offer is in the first engagement, the quicker you can collapse the timeframes to closing your deal and the higher likelihood of a positive result.

Conclusion 

So to conclude with this if we understand how China competes in the Australian market, we can outperform them, if we understand common Australian values, we can easily relate to most Australian business owners, and if we focus on using our offers to build trust with our client. The result will always be positive, if you don’t win the sale immediately, you will surely have multiple opportunities to present your brand to them. In business we do not sell products, we win business, we do not just promote products, we promote ideals and if we focus on solving problems we will always be highly desired.