Small companies sharing a big market

Nov 25 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

You don't have to be a mammoth corporation with a bottomless pit of capital to make it big overseas. Andrew Mernin finds out how a growing band of the region’s small businesses have become exporters on a shoestring budget.

Building trust with customers

IF you’ve ever handed in your cast-off clothing to a charity shop in the Tyneside area then there’s every chance that it’s found its way to Eastern Europe.

Eventex, based on Newcastle’s Quayside, buys second-hand clothing in bulk from charity shops and, more recently, from individual homes and sells it to retailers and distributors in Eastern Europe.

While part of its revenue is donated to charity, it is a profitable enterprise with clients in the likes of Warsaw, Krakow and Prague. In terms of becoming a first-time exporter on a shoestring, the company’s managing director Stephen Gardiner believes the key to breaking into Eastern Europe is creating a trusted reputation and agreeing amicable payment terms.

He said: "The biggest challenge was building rapport with the customers and getting to know what their demands were - there was a lot of travelling to places like the Ukraine involved.