Pricing Your Stock: The Local Market Math Importers Get Wrong
Importers price by instinct ("seemed fair") or by panic (" undercut everyone"). Both lose. Here is the pricing system that keeps containers moving.
Step 1 — know your true cost per unit
Landed cost = FOB + freight + duty/VAT + clearance + inland + contingency, divided by sellable units (not total units, 5% dead stock raises the cost of the other 95%). A $55 FOB washer is often $78 landed per sellable unit. Price against that number, never against the invoice.
Step 2 — read the market's three shelves
Every market has shelf tiers: premium retail (warranty-card buyers), volume wholesale (traders buying 10s and 20s), and price-first upcountry (cash-only). Survey all three before pricing: your cost sets the floor, but the shelf sets the ceiling, and the same Grade B washer belongs at three different prices in three different shelves.
Step 3 — price for velocity, then manage markdowns
Set the opening price at your target margin minus 5–8% (velocity discount). Review weekly: units moving at plan, hold; slower than 2 per week, 7% markdown, not 20% (a small cut repositions; a big cut announces distress). Units unsold by week 6: move them upcountry or bundle them as fillers. Dead capital is more expensive than lost margin.
Step 4 — protect the price floor
One discounting shop in a cluster trains the whole market to wait. Agree floors with your sub-dealers, enforce them with allocation ("price-fighters get last call on the next container"), and use bundles (washer + hose + installation credit) instead of price cuts to move stock.
The test
If you can state your cost per sellable unit, your shelf tier, and your current weeks-to-sell-through without opening a notebook, you are pricing. Otherwise you are guessing with extra steps.