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Guide

Finding importers by HS code: a working method

Turning a product code into a list of real buyers takes more than one search. This is the sequence that produces a list you can actually work, rather than a raw export you have to clean by hand.

Step 1 — Confirm the code, including its predecessors

Look up your product and check whether the heading has been revised recently. If it has, note both the current and the previous code. A search on the new code alone will silently omit anything filed under the old one.

Start from the HS code lookup to see what each code covers.

Step 2 — Check the market is worth the effort

Before building a list for a market, check how much of your product that country imports at all. A market importing a few million dollars a year will not produce a long buyer list, however good the data.

Our product pages show import value by market, plus how much already comes from China — which tells you how crowded the market is before you spend time on it.

Step 3 — Search by code and by description, then merge

On declaration-based markets, the code search will be close to complete. On bill-of-lading markets it will not, and the description search will find more. Run both, then de-duplicate by company so you are not counting the same buyer twice.

Step 4 — Strip out what is not a buyer

A raw result set always contains rows that will waste your time. Remove:

This step is what separates a list you can call from a spreadsheet you will never open.

Step 5 — Rank by what matters, not by volume alone

Volume tells you size. It does not tell you winnability. Two signals matter more:

Step 6 — Find the person, not the inbox

The company is the target; the person is the door. A verified name, role and contact route converts far better than a generic address. This is a separate data layer from the customs records themselves — worth checking where a provider sources it, and under what authorisation.

Where to go next

Ask about your market

Tell us the product and the market. We will reply with what the records actually contain for it — which markets have shipment detail, which have statistics only, and what a working list would look like. No charge, and no obligation.

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