who can help?

[moneyeater]

Hey folks,

i don´t know exactly where to post this.
Since i´m a squarebody guy i start it here!

My buddy Peter (northman) and me want to start a parts store for american cars and trucks here in Germany!
We´re both into chevy trucks and collected a good pile of knowledge and some parts and the will to get the growing community in germany supplied with all the needed and wanted parts!

Our major problem is to find someone who´s able and willing to collect all the parts we buy and puts them into a shipping container so we can get them from the harbour here and sell them.

If anybody of you guys knows someone who would do such a job or has connections to a freight agency or something like that - please contact us!

We´d also like to discuss how your favorite parts store would be!

[Gordonr1973]

Why don't you contact the companies that are selling the parts in North America and see if they would be interested in setting up an agency agreement or liscensing agreement with you? You would then likely get preferential pricing that could save some costs for you rather that having some dude buy the parts for you at full retail prices and then send them to you.

In a normal business start up, you would see:

- the company gauging how many North American cars are in Germany currently
- who are the businesses that are selling parts on the ground there now
- what are their mark-ups? what are their shipping expenses?
- what makes and models are they currently servicing?
- are they simply taking orders in Germany and then getting the parts from North America or are they pre-buying parts and stocking shelves in the hope that they are parts that are going to be sold withing the next 3 months?

There are lots of questions that need to be answered and that you as the new business owner need to be aware of....I'm not saying its a bad idea, just that in order to be successful it might help if you did some significant planning before starting out asking someone to send you a container of parts.

BUT.....if you are simply looking for someone to buy parts for you, fill a container and ship it to Germany I can do that for you. I would want a siginificant amount of cash up-front to cover your parts, the cost of shipping the container, and for my time to do arrange all of this. After the first shipment and we see that each side is trustworthy or not, we could come to an agreement that I would do this work for you for a certain percentage ontop of what the shipped goods value would be.

We would put that into a legal agreement, registered in my legal jurisdiction and secured by a bond that your company would post here with my lawyer in Canada for a set period of time.

How does that sound??

No, I'm not serious but I am a business consultant in real life that has set up companies / subsidiary offices in Australia, New Zealand, China and Viet Nam so consider this free advice but by no means, complete advice.

[moneyeater]

Gordon,

thanks for your open words and advice!
That is the way we need it and want it!

We already tried to find out what it may take to get this stuff going and we´re working on some contracts with a few companies that are shipping to Europe.
But for those parts you can´t get at their places we need somebody we can trust and who is near to the sources - at least not 10.00 mls away!

It´ll be necessary to see that person and be there at least once to get some contracts signed!
Maybe you can help us to check a contract before we run into problems?

At this time we just try to feel if there´s a possibility to get something going!

Volker

[Gordonr1973]

Anything is possible. It's like rebuilding a truck, you will need both money and time.

- if you don't have alot of money, you better have ALOT of time!

- if you don't have alot of time, you better have ALOT of money!!

:-)

[moneyeater]

You´re absolutely right!

[motornut]

maybe do some test runs before an all out container
find out a list of needed soon,asap,yesterday
heck if you search yards soom may do the shipping/work but thats the $$ part
being close to a large harbour would be a plus