Planning a first container of veterinary products from India

Building the mix

Start from what your market already buys, not from what is cheapest. Look at the products your customers currently order from other suppliers, identify the molecules rather than the brands, and find those molecules in a catalogue. That is the whole reason a molecule index exists.

A good first mix has three parts. Volume lines you are confident of selling, which pay for the container. Margin lines that are harder to source locally, which pay for the exercise. And three or four test lines you are not sure about, which is how you learn something. Weight it roughly sixty, thirty, ten.

Keep the presentations consolidated. Twenty oral liquids from four manufacturers ship more cleanly than twenty products across seven presentations and fourteen manufacturers, because each additional plant is another delivery into the warehouse and another set of batch dates to align.

Budget and volume

The line people forget is registration. In a lightly regulated market it is a few hundred dollars per product. In the EU or Australia it can exceed the value of the first two containers combined, which is why the product mix and the registration strategy have to be designed together.

Sequencing the work

Run these in parallel, not in series. Most first orders slip because the buyer treats them as a queue.

1. Week 1 to 2: shortlist products, request samples, request the quotation and the document list at the same time.
2. Week 2 to 4: samples arrive and are evaluated. In parallel, order the CoPP and GMP certificates, because they are the long pole.
3. Week 3 to 8: registration filing prepared with your local consultant, artwork adapted and reviewed locally.
4. Week 6 to 10: purchase order placed, advance paid, stocked lines picked, made-to-order lines in production.
5. Week 10 to 12: pre-shipment inspection, photographs, balance payment, sailing.
6. Then transit, which is eight to thirty days depending on where you are.

Five things that go wrong

The CoPP was ordered last. It takes two to three weeks, longer with legalisation, and most authorities will not move without it.

The HS code on the invoice did not match the carton description. Customs values duty from the invoice and inspects against the carton. A mismatch is a hold, every time.

Artwork was approved after the print run. Reprinting cartons costs weeks and the goods sit finished in a warehouse while it happens.

The payment was held by a correspondent bank. Predictable, undetectable in advance, and the reason a growing share of first orders settle in stablecoins.

Shelf life was too short on arrival. Agree a minimum remaining shelf life in writing before the order. Two-thirds is a normal expectation and it will not be honoured unless it is written down.

When you are ready to build the list, the catalogue carries MOQ and indicative pricing on every line, and the terms page has the Incoterms and lead times.