School of Economic Sciences > Extension Economics > Step 5: Products

Step 5: Products

With the help of your marketing intermediary, you must decide if you will have potential customers contact you through advertisements, directories, foreign language websites, or agent services, or if you will contact potential customers that you have identified by attending foreign trade shows, contacting foreign agent services, or in-person demonstrations.

Step 5.1: U.S. Department of Agriculture

For agricultural producers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s; Foreign Agricultural Service can help arrange for overseas contacts. The F.A.S. also organizes or endorses product or market trade shows and catalog promotions.

Action:

Foreign buyer’s list order form (pdf)

Step 5.2: U.S. Department of Commerce

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration manages Export.gov. (A website yourshould be familiar with by now if you are following the steps!) Exports.gov contains trade promotion material that is targeted for non-agricultural exporters.

Action:

5.3: Other Information Sources

In addition to the two sources above, there is a large and varied assortment of information available. The difficulty comes in finding, sorting, and evaluating the quality of that information. Here we list a few links, though we caution the reader to vet these carefully.

Disclaimer:

This manual is a demonstration based on interviews of successful exporters. Each individual case is specific and optimal strategy may differ from those discussed here. References to sources and documents outside of WSU Extension and the IMPACT Center are for reader convenience. WSU does not review, control, or take responsibility for their content, nor does WSU or any person therein explicitly or implicitly endorse the positions or policies of these sources.

Some WSU Extension web sites provide links to external sites for the convenience of users. These external sites are not managed by the WSU Extension. Furthermore, WSU Extension does not review, control or take responsibility for the content of these sites, nor do these sites implicitly or explicitly represent official positions and policies of WSU Extension.