To understand the difference we shall first discuss how indenting and buying agent are similar to each other. Both of them work in a foreign market and work as a foreign agent for your business. If you want to sell your product abroad, an indenting agent will help you. And if you want to purchase from abroad the buying agent will help you by rendering their respective services. This must be kept in mind that neither indenting agent nor buying agent have their companies or firms used for the buying or selling it would form a merchant trade in that case. They work independently not as a firm and charge you a fee or commission for their services.
What is an indenting agent?
A person in a foreign country who could assist you in selling your products abroad. For example, you are in India and you want to sell your products on a foreign country, you will contact and indenting agent who will suggest you market places, the trends of the market, and will get you in touch with the potential buyers for your product and can market your product as well. As a return, he will charge you a fee/commission. This is noted, the indenting agents do not grant a guarantee of payment. They get you connected to potential buyers and you have to deal on your own.
What is a buying agent?
Contrary to the role of indenting agent the buying agents work oppositely. If you want to buy something from a foreign country you will contact a buying agent, who will assist you in getting the best product, or a product of your choice from a foreign market and get it to your home country. The buying agents also don’t work with agencies, they work independently and charge you a commission for getting connected to a producer in a foreign country. They are also not responsible for payment. They give you a potential party to work with, help in assisting and negotiating terms and conditions. They also help in the paperwork formality and charge a fee for their services.
Where agents are required?
When you are worried to buy or sell a product to a foreign market place and lack the market understanding or don’t have proper knowledge or contact of buyers or sellers this is when the agents come to help. Moreover. If you have a language barrier, or you are not well aware of the working of a certain market/country, agents can assist you in the smooth running of your dealings and negotiations. These agents assist in easing things for your business. You save time and money, and need not worry about finding a client, these agents connect you to the right ones and you just work with them to finalize your deals.
How can we become indenting agents for others?
To work as in indenting agent in your home country, you just need to establish contacts and links with the businesses and the product owners’ who are willing to expand their business and want to supply their products in your home town, for example, a company want to export tiles to India, you can contact them and establish business relations with that company to find an importer who could willing to import tiles from the supplier. In this way, you can set up your reputation as an indenting agent for foreign nationals in India.
But remember to have a safe side for yourself, having contracts predefined and mentioning your role and process in the deals. And the fee/commission which would be paid to you for the services you are providing.
How can we become buying agents?
Being a buying agent is easy but it helps the local business to thrive globally. You can look for a supplier in the local market who are willing to export their product. You can hunt down international buyers/business who could be potential buyers for the products and can serve the purpose. All you have to do if find a supplier who wants to expand globally, find a buyer who is willing to purchase the product link them together, mediate the process act as a liaison and charge a fee/commission for your services.
For example, a supplier of handmade crafts in India wants to go global, you can find him a potential buyer in a foreign country play the role of mediators, and collect your commission. Ideally, you will charge the supplier for commissions as you are a buying agent.
How to successfully get work done from buying agent or indenting agents?
To make sure that you get the best results from buying and indenting agents, establish professional relations with your agent. Make them aware of your problem and what you expect from them. They should brief you about the buyer or seller completely and accurately, so there are fewer chances of failure in a deal.
Moreover, all the terms and conditions of the contract must be checked and finalized before proceeding and commissions/fees are paid once they have connected you with a potential buyer/seller and the chances of a fair deal are visible.
How to successfully become an indenting or buyer agent?
This work is related to exports and imports of goods and requires effective communication skills. One must have a good experience and knowledge of importing and exporting business and must possess excellent communication skills for a persuasive mode of communication. Moving forward, having linkages across various regions of the world could help a lot in finding potential buyers/sellers for your respective clients.
For promoting yourself as a buying or indenting agent you can print your visiting cards and give them to potential sellers in your country. You can take help from the internet and social media, and promote yourself as an indenting or buying agent. There are scores of B2B verified suppliers leads who are gold suppliers in a website like Alibaba who can be your potential clients and can help you establish yourself as a successful agent for them to sell its products in India. You may start by dropping a message to such suppliers by asking them do you need help to sell your products in India……? Who will reject your proposal? definitely they want to sell and definitely you can become their channel partner for them as well.