How to find export buyers for free: what each free source gives you

Each row below is described from the source's own pages or a published guide to it. None of the customs sources gives contact details.

Before you spend a day in HMRC or ImportYeti, find out how many companies you are looking for. The tables below come from Reevi's free importer pages. Each count is the number of companies named as importers in import records filed in the destination country. Cotton T-shirts are HS 610910. Women's dresses are HS 620442, 620443 and 620444. The data provider does not state the period these records cover, so a count can include companies that imported only once. Treat each count as the size of the pool, not as a yearly figure.

Read the supplier shares in these records against your own country. Shares move as records update, so check the current figure on each country page. When this guide was written, about 41% of recorded United Kingdom cotton T-shirt shipments came from India. For a Tiruppur unit, that shows an established sourcing route. It does not tell you how many buyers use Indian suppliers. Vietnam supplied about 48% of recorded United States cotton T-shirt shipments, and about 59% (United States) and about 54% (United Kingdom) of recorded women's dress shipments. A Ho Chi Minh City dress unit therefore enters pools that already buy heavily from its country. A Dhaka unit should open each country page and read the list of top supplying countries before choosing a first market. To see every tracked market for one product, grouped by region, use the cotton T-shirts page. These pages do not show company names. The names come from the sources below.

Both return company names taken from customs data. Neither returns contacts.

1. 1

   Open Find UK traders

   On uktradeinfo.com, enter your commodity code (for example 610910) and choose the commodity code filter. You can also search by a product description.

2. 2

   Narrow the results

   Filter by trader type (imports), year of trade, postcode or county. The data covers importers trading with non-EU countries from 2016, and importers in Great Britain trading with EU countries from 2022.

3. 3

   Open each trader

   Note the registered name and address and the dates the company traded the goods. Download its trade history as a CSV file.

What a bad result looks like: a name and an address, with nothing else. HMRC publishes no quantities or values, so a company that imported once looks the same as a regular buyer. HMRC also does not show where the goods came from. Use the trading dates instead. A company that traded the goods in recent, repeated periods is a better first contact than one with a single entry years ago.

The Canadian Importers Database lists major importers into Canada (the businesses that together account for up to 80% of imports of a product) by product, by city and by country of origin. Each entry gives the company name, city, province and postal code. For a United States or United Kingdom search, one part is useful. The database includes non-resident importers, which have addresses outside Canada. Search your product or your country of origin and note any non-resident importer with a United States or United Kingdom address. Skip customs brokers: they handle customs work on behalf of their clients, and the client is the buyer. More detail is in the Canada guide.

According to Bellingcat's toolkit, ImportYeti obtained all United States sea shipment bills of lading from January 2015 through a freedom of information request to United States customs. It publishes the data free online. The free search does not start from a product code, so start from names you already have: exhibitors on a United States trade fair list, brands whose garment labels you know, or non-resident importers with United States addresses from the Canadian database.

1. 1

   Sign up

   Create a free account. ImportYeti requires a login after 25 page views.

2. 2

   Search a known company

   Enter the company's legal name, not its brand name. The legal name is often printed on the company's terms or contact page.

3. 3

   Read its supplier table

   Check each supplier's name and country. Suppliers in your country mean this buyer already sources from your region.

4. 4

   Click a supplier

   ImportYeti shows every company in its database that this supplier ships to. If you pick a supplier in your country that makes similar garments, its customer list becomes your list of United States buyers to check.

5. 5

   Confirm the product

   On each company page, look for 610910, or for 620442, 620443 or 620444, among the HS codes it imports.

What a bad result looks like: no record at all (wrong legal name, or the company asked United States customs to keep its manifests confidential), product codes that do not include your garment, or a supplier with no contact details on the site. The guide to customs and bill of lading data explains how to read each field.

• Trade fair exhibitor lists and association member lists. CBI's guide to finding buyers was written for home textile exporters. Its tips include visiting trade fairs and visiting the websites of sector associations. When a fair or an association publishes its list online, you can read it without travelling. Buyer-seller meets run by export promotion bodies are covered in trade promotion buyer sources.
• Business directories such as Europages and Kompass. Check each site's access terms. Keep a listing only if the company's own website shows a current range of garments like yours, then look it up in HMRC or ImportYeti to see whether it imports.
• UN Comtrade. On comtradeplus.un.org, choose the United States or the United Kingdom as the reporting country, then imports and HS 6109 (T-shirts). Compare the trading partners: you see how much of each market's T-shirt imports come from your country and how much from Vietnam, India or Bangladesh. These are market totals, never company names.

On Find Buyers, enter a product and the countries you want to sell to. You do not need an account. Reevi returns named companies that already import the product, each with a short reason it fits. This search starts from the product. ImportYeti's free search starts from a company name.

A free account needs no card. It keeps your list and gives you 5 buyers a month with company, contacts, research and outreach, including a ready-to-send opener. Use the named search results to choose which 5 companies deserve that work. Reevi then emails the introductions you approve. The pricing page lists the free plan as English only, which covers buyers in the United States and the United Kingdom. The free Message Writer drafts a first message in the buyer's business language, with a version in your language so you can review it. The free buyer check shows whether a company is real and active.

More than 5 buyers a month, and customs import records on your buyers (shipments, value and who supplies them today), are paid. Paid buyer lists from other providers are compared in export buyers lists.

1. 1

   Day 1: fix the code

   Use 610910 for cotton T-shirts, or the dress code (620442, 620443 or 620444) that matches your fabric. You need this code for HMRC, ImportYeti and UN Comtrade.

2. 2

   Day 2: choose one market

   Use the tables above and the UN Comtrade partner check to pick either the United States or the United Kingdom. Work only that market this week.

3. 3

   Day 3: pull names

   United Kingdom: run the HMRC steps above with your Day 1 code and keep 20 names with recent, repeated trading dates. United States: run the ImportYeti steps above from five companies you know and keep the customers of suppliers in your country.

4. 4

   Day 4: check every name

   For each company, confirm it has a working website, sells garments like yours today, and is not a customs broker or freight company. Note whether it is a brand, a retailer or a wholesaler. The garment buyers guide explains how each type buys. Remove any company that fails a check.

5. 5

   Day 5: find a contact

   On each company's website, look for a contact page, a buying page or a supplier page. Record a published business email or a supplier application form. If the site has only a general contact form, use it and ask for the person who buys cotton T-shirts or dresses.

6. 6

   Day 6: write five emails

   Pick the five best fits. In each email, say what you make, your minimum order and one reason it suits this buyer.

7. 7

   Day 7: send

   Send the five emails and set a follow-up date one week later.