My mind has been abuzz with thinking about how to provide innovative opportunities for our customers.

Buying used computer equipment in bulk is always a tricky business.  If you want to build a solid business with long term customers, each item needs to be carefully inspected and tested for functionality and then evaluated for physical appearance before being shipped off to customers. Transportation can also be enormously expensive. There are plenty of companies that offer untested bulk sales of used computer equipment in the world – I have not found many that offer fully tested and inspected equipment in bulk in South America without a 3 week wait for a boat to arrive.  Note that I am not saying that they dont exist, just that I have not found them yet (if you know of some, please let me know).

Here is my thinking: offer the equivalent of dropshipping throughout South America on a wholesale basis from our Frontera Services warehouses in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. You can ship a single pallet or a truckload for much less money and much faster than sending such items from the US. Santa Cruz, Bolivia is just a few days trucking distance from most major South American cities and just a day or so from almost any town in Bolivia.You’d also be able to use a major credit card to pay (not so easy in these parts).

In short, you’d find a customer for any items listed on our special dropship website (ready soon) and basically hire us to provide those items and transportation to your final customer. We’ll provide you with a separate “dropship” price and we’ll return a transportation quote for your customer’s destination and, once paid, arrange transportation. You then work out any import duties with your customer and invoice them. 

Who can this help? Church groups, schools, international charities, subsidiary companies, contractors, and anyone else whose core competency is not logistics and needs reasonably priced computer equipment in bulk. Imagine being able to easily provide a charity in South America with badly needly computers for instance and having all of the details (minus customs) handled for you.

Thinking about this as a customer, I see the following three advantages.

- I can economically send a single pallet, a small truck, or a large container of fully tested computer equipment to any customer, organization, or charity in South America.

- I dont have to wait for 3-5 weeks for a ship to arrive or have the hassles of coordinating transport from a major port to the final destination

- I can sell to customers in South America without much investment and keep the difference in selling price and dropship price

We could institute this program in Bolivia immediately – there would still be a few days required to “nationalize” the items from our free zone warehouse.  We’d be ready to expand it to Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina in August 2006. Note: it is possible that customs agencies may delay shipments for a number of reasons. We do our best to get items to your customers quickly but customs is outside of our control and so this program does not guaranteed shipment timeframes.

Is this proposed service of interest to you? Join the conversation….

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