Once you have calculated an export price to quote to your customer, you are not yet finished. Your customer is likely to be only the first step in distribution channel in the target market. Your customer may be an import agent, an importing distributor, a wholesaler, or a retailer. These intermediaries - and some countries have long chains of intermediaries - will all be adding to the cost of your product in terms of their handling charges, distribution costs and commissions and mark-ups. Your export price that you sell to the importer and the final selling price that the end-consumer pays in that particular marketplace may be significantly different. You also need to bear in mind that there are likely to be costs added to your export price that have nothing to do with the intermediaries such as sales tax, excise tax and other regulatory charges.

In your pricing analysis you will considered all of these additional charges and intermediary costs and will have a good idea what to estimate for these services and taxes. You then need to add these additional costs to your export price to determine a final selling price. It is this final selling price that you will need to compare with similar products to your own (namely those of your competitors). How do you compare? Are you cheaper; the same price; or more expensive? How does your product attributes and quality compare with the final selling price? Can you compete?

Do not forget to take the additional costs we have highlighted into consideration.

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