We spoke to Sadhana Vipat, owner of an Import-Export Company based in Italy. Her company deals in “Made In Italy” Furniture. She can be reached at furniture@vipatindustries.com
Question – How can a shopkeeper or vendor say approach you if they want to sell Italian furniture in their shops.

Ms. Sadhana – For store owners or vendors who are wanting to keep Italian furniture in their stores are categorized as –
i. A Store owner who has never had Italian furniture bought before for selling and wants to have it in his shop now for selling, and
ii. A shopkeeper already has highly priced Italian furniture but wants to expose his furniture line to affordable Italian Furniture’s too.

Let’s talk about these in detail.

i. For store owners or vendors, who for the first time want to trade Italian furniture can contact us. We firstly share all information on Italian furniture like different style, brands, companies, its budget, etc. We show them like very high end luxurious Italian furniture to medium range Italian furniture to very economically priced furniture. Then based on your (shopkeeper or vendor) clientele the shopkeeper can choose for what product to have.

But before letting him choose and do final buying, we as an import-export company do our homework about shopkeeper and his business. This is done to understand what style of clientele he has, his location of selling, the kind of products often bought from him, etc. And then on basis of our homework done, we help you with different ideas like from where to buy, what products will sell and make client happy. We can guide him with new concepts or ideas for how to increase your clientele and thus expand your business.

ii. For type 2, buying and selling, the shopkeepers or vendors would already have official dealership of couple of brands. To have economical or say medium range Italian furniture we can guide have appropriate furniture for your shops. The process remains the same where we share different catalogs, pictures and presentation with required data with you. Again this is done after all the homework we do about shopkeeper and his business.

We share products that are of similar quality or level that shopkeeper already has, but we help them get for better rates. These Italian furniture too are as durable, strong and good looking as highly classed Italian furniture. The only difference is that these furniture do not come with a brand name or nay tag of big names. Such furniture line products i.e. economic rates for same classy looking furniture helps vendors increase his clientele and thus expand his business. Well such range of furniture is truly missing in India.

Outdoor Furniture
Not only for Interiors, but you have a wide range of Italian furniture line for outdoor purpose too. Again I would say that in India not many stores or brands have outdoor furniture concept. Outdoor Italian furniture therefore sells very easily.

“MADE IN ITALY” Tag
Well all there furniture’s that I have spoken till now, all come with “MADE IN ITALY” tag. So there are no chance for anyone, to mistaken it as Chinese products. I am saying this because usually is a product doesn’t have any tag as to from where its made, people think its China made product.

Question – Is there any procedure to payments for shopkeepers or vendors to follow? What is it?
Ms. Sadhana – For payments a standard procedure is followed by most companies where 30% of total payment or quotation is made in advance. This advance payment is done as the time of signing the contract. Rest 70% of the payment is to be done when the product is ready to be shipped i.e. just before shipment.

There are some companies who believe in 50% advance and 50% as final payment. While some work on 80%-20% payment terms. At times, The ratio is worked on depending on vendors’ or shopkeeper’s situation.

Another way of payment terms is through LC i.e. Letter of Credit. This is very much secured way of making first transaction especially where the shopkeeper and dealing for the first time with us or any other company. Letter of credit is ideal way to make payments in such cases where both the parties don’t really know each other that well.

Many a time shopkeeper prefers dealing with company or brand directly, rather than through us. Well established companies usually do not prefer LC mode of payment. They wish to get the deal finalized through us.
LC is surely a secured mode of payment but slows down the process.

Shipping Terms
Shipping of the product depends on kind of project. Well, we do shipping too for professional who deal with us. We have an official import-export License. Sometimes shipping is done by companies or brand themselves.