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Trade Data Provider
22-04-2025
By analyzing trade data, import and export companies can gain insights into target markets, track industry trends, monitor competitors, and—most importantly—quickly identify qualified buyers. It's one of the most powerful tools for efficiently expanding into international markets.
There are four main approaches to using trade data to develop overseas buyers:
1. Direct Search
You can search directly using product keywords or the first 4–6 digits of the HS code.
For example, if you're in the footwear business, a search will clearly show the overall export situation for shoe products—including destination countries, number of transactions, buyers, and suppliers.
Note: Why use only the first 4–6 digits of the HS code?
Because the data source is based on foreign customs data, and while the first six digits of HS codes are standardized globally, the last 2–4 digits can vary by country. To ensure accuracy, it's best to search using the standardized portion of the code.
2. Competitor Search
Curious about which foreign buyers your competitors are working with?
For example, if you input the company name "ELEC TECH SOLID STATE LIGHTING HK," you can continuously track and analyze its export activity. By digging deeper, you'll uncover their buyers' basic information, procurement habits, and changes in demand—valuable insights for business development.
3. Reverse Search
Due to varying customs policies, not all countries make detailed shipment data public.
For example, EU countries like Germany, France, and Italy do not disclose full bill of lading details. So how can exporters target buyers in those countries?
Reverse searching is the answer.
Many countries—such as the US, India, Vietnam, Russia, and Pakistan—provide not only import data but also export data. By analyzing their export records, you can identify buyers in the EU who are importing goods—these importers are your potential clients.
4. Analogous Search
When using trade data to poach clients from competitors, success may be limited—especially if buyers are loyal or your product lacks a clear advantage.
In such cases, it's helpful to expand your thinking. By analyzing the nature of buyer companies in the trade data, you can understand how your product is distributed overseas—and through which channels.
For instance, say you're an exporter of sunglasses. Through trade data, you discover that importers aren't limited to optical goods wholesalers or retailers. You may also find fashion accessories distributors, automotive supply shops (4S stores), and even children's product stores are importing these items.
Once you've identified the customer group, you can combine trade data with search engines, social media, customer profiling tools, and maps to develop a multi-dimensional customer acquisition strategy. This allows you to extend the value chain of trade data and achieve exponential growth in your customer base.
Tendata provides more than 10 billion trade data, covering 228 countries and regions, accumulating more than 10 billion trade transaction details, and a trade database of more than 230 sub-industries.
Searching product keywords or HS codes in Tendata iTrader will allow you to view tens of thousands of active potential customers in the past year, as well as customers' purchase records, including purchase amount, quantity, time, frequency, and their suppliers/buyers. These companies in the Customers List are all customers with needs, and can be used for foreign trade customer development.
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