Foundations of International Trade

Before you choose an Incoterm or open a letter of credit, you need a clear picture of how an export deal works from first enquiry to final payment. This course gives you that picture: the steps, the people involved, how to classify your products, where to sell, how to find and check buyers, and which risks to manage at each stage.

What you will learn

• Explain how an export deal works and the four flows it involves: goods, documents, money and information
• Follow the export process step by step, from enquiry and quotation to shipment, payment and closing the file
• Identify every actor in a shipment, from freight forwarder and customs broker to banks, insurers and inspectors, and know what to expect from each
• Classify your products with the Harmonized System and avoid the classification errors that cost duties and delays
• Select export markets with free public data and a simple scoring method, then find and vet international buyers
• Map the commercial, country, currency, transport and compliance risks of a deal and choose the right tool for each

Course contents

1. What Is International Trade? How an Export Deal Really Works — What international trade is, why it differs from selling at home, and how an export deal works: the contracts, the four flows and a full worked example.
2. The Export Process Step by Step: From Enquiry to Payment — The export process in 12 steps, from the buyer's enquiry and your quotation to shipping, customs, documents and payment, with a timeline and a checklist.
3. Who Is Who in International Trade: The Actors of an Export — Freight forwarders, customs brokers, shipping lines, banks, insurers, inspectors, chambers of commerce: who does what in an export deal and who pays them.
4. HS Codes Explained: How to Classify Your Products Correctly — What an HS code is, how the 6-digit structure and the General Interpretative Rules work, and how to classify your products step by step, with real examples.
5. Choosing Export Markets: Research Methods and Free Data Sources — How to choose your export markets: a 3-stage method, the free trade databases to use, the criteria that matter and a weighted scoring matrix you can copy.
6. How to Find International Buyers and Check Them Before You Ship — Where to find international buyers, how to qualify leads and how to check a foreign buyer before shipping: registries, references, sanctions, scam red flags.
7. Risks in International Trade and How to Manage Each One — The risks of international trade: buyer, country, currency, transport, compliance and legal risk, the tools that manage each, and a worked risk register.