What do horse blankets, agricultural motorbikes and shop fittings have in common?

They’re all things Hornet has sourced and imported from China on behalf of our clients.  Along with fireplace tongs, cupcake wrappers, LED lighting, wall mounts for tumble driers, pumps, gift packaging and Brazilian beach bats.  (They’re used for Frescobol, in case you’re wondering.)  Not to mention the really ‘out there’ request we’re working on at the moment, which we’d love to share except we’re sworn to secrecy…

When we tell people that Hornet’s main business is to source and import goods from China, they always ask ‘what kind of things?’  As you can see, it’s a difficult question to answer!  But we’ve done a bit of data analysis and here’s some quick snapshots you might find interesting:

Goods Hornet already sources and imports

Around two thirds of our clients are importing consumer goods

  • About 25% of those are in the gifts and homewares sector.
  • Other top consumer categories are clothing, fashion accessories and items for children.
  • There’s strong demand for promotional giveaways – our custom manufacturing capabilities mean we can source something which really stands out.

The remaining third of our clients are sourcing industrial goods overseas, for use within business.  These clients are much more diverse and it’s harder to define categories.

The largest group is those importing packaging, which includes both standard packaging like bottles for hair products or stay-fresh foil bags for coffee beans as well as special gift boxes and sets for Christmas or seasonal promotions.  Other popular categories include

  • building products
  • vehicles and accessories (including those agricultural motorcycles we mentioned as well as bike trailers)
  • security products
  • pumps
  • lighting

Goods Hornet could source and import

This is a selection of products visitors to our website were looking for (we checked their search terms) but which to date they haven’t asked us to source for them.

  • military vests
  • himalayan salt lamps
  • eiffel tower vases
  • korker ribbon
  • acoustic foam
  • bb guns

Is there anything Hornet won’t source?

At Hornet, we draw a very firm line on trademark and brand protection.  It’s not only the ethical thing to do – it’s good commercial sense.  With more than half our clients engaging us for custom manufacturing services, they need to be sure they can trust us with specifications and intellectual property.

So to all those people (15% of our product-based searches) who searched the web looking to import adidas or Apple or Samsung or Nike or Guess or other brand-name products – we’re sorry, but we won’t be doing business with you!  As for the smaller but still significant group looking for dvds and electronics, be very sure you’re not looking for branded goods before you approach us.

Apart from branded goods, though, we can help with just about anything – as long as you have a reasonable minimum order quantity.  So if you’ve got an idea, just contact Hornet and we’ll see if we can help.

 

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