Conducting research online to find potential markets was our best option for this project. In order to find potential buyers, it was important to develop a list of criteria that would be used to evaluate countries where Dr. Comfort shoes could be sold. This involved gathering statistics about multiple countries that also had high rates of diabetes. Although the shoes are intended for diabetic patients, they can be worn by anyone who values comfort. With this in mind, we looked into medical channels as well as online channels. The overall focus of our research is on B2B e-marketplaces since they are more cost-efficient and accessible to the company. We also researched the possibility of donating some styles and using liquidators as well.
Medical …show more content…
For Dr. Comfort, we prepared a cost analysis that may help the company negotiate prices once they start contacting potential buyers. To facilitate this process, the excess shoes inventory were arranged by category. Shipping costs are typically high, therefore we have included for each country as well. It is important that we include any hidden expense in our cost analysis to mitigate the risk of possibly losing profit.
Since Dr. Comfort takes reserves for its products, determining the net inventory (value – reserve amount) is important to reach accurate estimates of what the company could charge for each style. To accomplish this task, we created an excel worksheet that shows the different categories and styles of shoes along with all related costs (see appendix).
It is important to notice that we excluded the cost of warehouse, electricity, and other maintenance costs because those are sunk costs that the company will never be able to recover. Such costs are period costs that do not change based on the amount of inventory stored in the warehouse and cannot be passed on to customers. The only costs that can be passed onto customers are freight costs and …show more content…
John Martin, VP of International Markets
John Martin is not directly involved with any Dr. Comfort products. However, he does have a lot of knowledge about international markets. He has marketed medical devices manufactured by DJO in foreign countries, such as China, Australia, Canada, and many more. We showed him a list of potential countries that had suitable markets for Dr. Comfort shoes based on a list of criteria we had developed. Since we initially considered medical channels, we asked Mr. Martin which countries he would recommend for us to focus on.
Mr. Martin’s knowledge about regulatory restrictions and registration processes helped us exclude China and Brazil from the list. China has a very long registration process for medical devices that could take up to two years. Brazil was pushed down to the bottom of the list due to similar restrictions as well. The only countries we had left were Japan, Russia, South Korea, and Australia.

2. Milena Doss, Trade Compliance Manager
Ms. Doss possesses extensive knowledge about trade restrictions and regulations. We met her briefly to discuss any trade compliances we should be aware of before as we continued our research. She told us about BIS.org and CBF.gov. Based on her own knowledge about exporting products to other countries, Brazil and China have the most entry barriers. This further reinforced what we had learned from Mr. Martin about the trade restrictions in China and