General

We often find that many foreign trade partners' understanding of customs data is only at the level of how to find a contact person. If we only use this point, we will not achieve the maximum benefit of effective use of customs data. Today, we will integrate and summarize a series of common problems in the use of customs data and share them with you to help you master customs data more deeply, so as to facilitate timely viewing and learning. We suggest collecting and forwarding the data to friends who have contact with customs.

Q1: What is customs data?

The customs data comes from the manifest, bill of lading and customs clearance data of each country, including the specific information of each import and export transaction, such as product description, price, weight, volume, origin, destination country, consignor, consignee, etc. If this information is wrong, the customs has the right to detain the goods under false names, so as long as the customs data provided through formal channels must be true and accurate.

Q2: What is the value of customs data?

Customs data has always played an important role in international trade. It is not only one of the necessary tools for foreign trade customer development, but also the data support for the company's market operation.

There are mainly the following usage scenarios:

(1) Market frontier trend analysis to understand industry changes.

② Develop foreign trade customers and quickly screen buyers.

③ Maintain customers and monitor peers, master buyers' purchase rules, and consolidate existing customers.

Q3: Why is there no customer contact information?

The customs data basically has no customer contact information. I believe that people with actual experience in foreign trade customs declaration are very clear that the customer contact information in the customs declaration document is optional and belongs to personal privacy information. So most people do not fill in their contact information, only fill in the company name and transaction information. Some customs data that claim to have customer contact information on the market are re-matched with third-party enterprise directory procurement through e-mail capture software. Because there is no customer contact information on the customs data, many customers still need accurate development.

So, to get to the point, we still suggest that while using customs data, we can cooperate with search engines and SNS platforms to develop (such as Google Search, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), and develop a search plan, regularly and quantitatively screen potential customers, and finally achieve accurate development. Of course, there are many special mining software, such as the one I'm using. You can directly enter the company name to mine the customer contact information: lnkd.in/g6xQkFU, and you can also mine the position information and important company leaders.

Q4: Are customs data updated timely?

Don't worry about this. For different countries, the latest data will be updated regularly according to a relatively stable cycle. However, sometimes the update time will be affected by the dynamics of the local situation in each country. But let me remind you that at the level of customer development, it is more important to make good use of previous data. If you don't master the development method, even the latest data, I don't think the latest data will help you that much.

Q5: Do customs data need language-sensitive search?

The data information comes from the customs record system of the importing country, so the general goods information and the company name of the importer will use the local mother tongue.

Therefore, we should treat the product description and the name of the importer company flexibly. For English-speaking countries, search in English, Russia and Ukraine in Russian, and other language countries in corresponding languages. ‍

Q6: Which countries are currently open to customs data?

North America: USA, Canada, Dominica

Central America: Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

South America: Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Chile and Guyana.

Europe: Russia, Ukraine, Britain, Spain, CIS, Moldova.

Asia: South Korea, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Taiwan Province, Philippines, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Japan, Türkiye, Thailand and Afghanistan.

Africa: Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, Botswana, Ghana, Cameroon, Lesotho, Namibia, C ô te d'Ivoire, South Africa, Nigeria, Chad, Central Africa and Burundi.

Q7: Why do some people who sell customs data say they have customs data from more than 200 countries?

There is actually an information error here. For the simplest example, when the data source is 40 countries, it can be expanded to more than 190 countries. For example, Germany does not open its customs data, while Canada's customs data is open, so if there are goods from Canada to Germany, Germany's data can be expanded.

Q8: Do you have the sea, land and air traffic data of each country?

At present, except the United States and Pakistan, which are ocean bills of lading, almost all other countries have all the data of transportation (sea, land and air transportation). Therefore, before purchasing or using customs data, you should know your main market and mode of transportation for the convenience of subsequent data query.

Q9: Why can't I search for data with the company name of competitors or buyers?

It is possible that the other party is an agent or an export company, so the shipper on the bill of lading is not the English company name of the competitor. On the other hand, some countries will have relevant policies for local import enterprises, allowing them to block the corresponding information display. In this case, no data can be found. ‍

Q10: Is the result of query using 6-digit code accurate?

The 6-bit code query is certainly accurate, but accurate. The customs data itself provides the customs data imported from abroad, not the data exported domestically. The natural data is obtained from the customs of each country. As for foreign trade, you should know that the international HS code is the first six digits, and the following digits are customized according to the guidelines of each country. Therefore, only 6-bit coding can be used to extract large categories.

Q11: How to use 6-bit code to realize accurate query of 8-bit code?

It is recommended to use the purchasing data of peers or foreign benchmark customers to confirm the 8-digit HS code of the current country.

Q12: Why do I develop overseas customers and get the customs data of foreign imports instead of the export data of Chinese customs?

The customs data itself belongs to some policy information, and the policies of each country are different. At home, the more detailed data of China's export market belongs to the transaction statistics with suppliers, but due to domestic policy reasons, all the data obtained do not have the corresponding specific information of foreign buyers.

Therefore, buyers can only obtain foreign import data, and foreign data naturally need to be obtained through national customs. Each country has different public data. Some countries can only see the information of importers, some countries' importers and exporters can see it, and some countries' importers and exporters cannot see it, which can only be used for market analysis.

Q13: Is the price in the customs data true?

The prices in the customs import and export data are not completely available for reference. Generally speaking, the price figure is calculated based on the average unit price of the total amount of the whole batch of goods. Some multinational subsidiaries deliberately underreported the tax avoidance price to the parent company, and some customs officers filled it in at will. However, the frequency and quantity of procurement are of great reference value to foreign traders.

Q14: In the customs data, many of them are freight forwarders. Is it normal?

First of all, we have to admit that the data provided by any company is included by the freight forwarder. From the actual foreign trade operation, it would be strange if there were no freight forwarders in the data. The proportion of freight forwarders is naturally related to the industry. But few industries find that all data are freight forwarders and there are no actual buyers.

Q15: I use a very accurate keyword search, and only a few data matches. What is the reason?

In fact, the basic principle of customs data search is very similar to other search engines. First, let's think about it. Do the keywords you search must appear in the cargo information of the bill of lading? Sometimes we can't find too detailed product keywords on the bill of lading, because the freight forwarder or documenter will try to fill in the information in less words or use large types of words on the bill of lading to prevent errors caused by complex information. So when you find that there are not many search results, you need to consider whether you need to change your thinking, or go the other way, to check what kind of product description is often used in the import data of foreign buyers.

Q16: Why can each country display different information fields?

Different countries have different degrees of openness to data. If a customs data manufacturer tells you that he has all the data, he must be fooling you. For example, most EU countries do not open customs data.

Among the countries that open customs data, some are bill of lading (manifest) data, and some are importers' lists. Therefore, the information fields displayed in the customs data system are different due to different data formats.

Even if some countries do not have importers and exporters to display it, it is still valuable. For example, we use existing data to set annual goals; Refer to the trade volume and price of the industry; Pay attention to the volume and price carriers of the importing countries.