With its first import in 1971, GD import became one of the leading importer/trader of products dedicated to the mail order market.
We source products that are “different” from others. Our items reply to needs and solve daily problems!
We bring ideas that sell to either mass and niche markets. Our range covers all domains.
We travel the world and in particular China to bring the best innovations to our distributors and their consumers.
Discover 3.000 products, renewed by 500 novelties every year.
Our R&D department creates 5 to 15 new concept annualy.
Watch some of our products:
Discover our new marketing tools to support your online shops with demo videos, your printed campaigns with QR code, and your shop with 2 minutes promotional videos!
In 2020, we opened an internal video studio to supply a video and pictures for each product that you purchase from us. We already have 500 marketed products and more to come every month.
Videos are a great support for sales, product understanding, and reduce significantly the return rate.
Don’t miss anymore the web/social medias opportunities and offer videos to your business!
Our studio can also create YOUR own demo videos from only 249euro
"Spine" is our innovative modular system that fits in a standard carton and takes some 5 minutes to assemble. Place SPINE at the best place and push your best sellers, your innovations and promotions like never before. A video shelf sells 5 to 10 times more than a regular shelf.
With our online configurator, you can create the shelf that meets your own needs. Choose from various sizes, screens, colors and materials.
"Flex" is our innovative modular system that fits to your products. Place them at the right place and highlight your special offers. Let people add this one more product when waiting at the cash desk.
Choose from various sizes, screens, colors and materials. Make it yours and get your instant quotation with our online 3D configurator.
Our group is integrating its own studio. We created a unique online configurator to order your video in only 5 minutes. VideoFab is THE Video Factory at amazing prices (From 249 to 319 euro according to the product profile).
Mail Order Catalogues
This is our native market and still our main distribution channel as an importer. We supply more than 80 catalogues in Europe, USA, Japan, Australia,… We outsourced around 20.000 products and managed 2.000 as an importer or a trader.
Specificity of this market: Mail order catalogues need quite a margin to cover printings, mailing, propection and shipping charges. The margin is to be at least 3 to 5 times behind the purchase price. Each product has to be different from commodities products. A unique function is highly expected and the product must be understood from a picture. Mail order is based on test and statisitic to generate a minimum turnover per surface dedicated to the product.
How we reply to those needs: We offer unique and usefull products. We create all the marketing material. We guaranty the product availability during a period (based on forecast). Logistic and re-handling of goods is part of our job. A strong experience based on the profiling of the consumers/catalogue helps our customer to make the right choice.
As seen on TV in Retail
We have been requested to create concepts for this industry in 2014. Since then we developed and marketed 40 products from which a few sold at more than a million pieces.
Specifics of this market: DRTV is known as the “As seen on TV” industry. Those companies can drive a huge volume of merchandise in a short period of time. To run such numbers, the product must be unique and have a Wow Effect during a 1-2 minute video. This video will be displayed during a dedicated national TV advertising campaign or on a TV in store. The product will be massively implent in supermakets and chain stores. This market needs a 4 to 5 margin on top of the purchase cost.
How we reply to those needs: We use our experience in product sells and identify a real mass market problem. We create a product that can solve the problem at the right manufacturing cost. We manage a prototype to produce a concept teasing video. Then it is time to perform some market tests with the right distributor for each main international markets. If lucky, it is time to produce big, fast and with a strong quality management.
Home Shopping
Home shopping is the name of a TV show which offers products to consumers. Live or pre-recorded, those presentations with demonstrators became popular worldwide in the 70s and 80s. Today this business extended to the web and has been named Live shows.
Specificity of this market: Home shopping need quite a margin to cover the show production and the airtime. The margin is to be at least 3 to 4 times behind the purchase price. A profit per minute is targeted. Each product must be different from commodities products. A unique function is highly expected, and the product must offer a story telling and ideally a WOW effect during the presentation.
How we reply to those needs: We offer unique and useful products. We create all the marketing material. We guaranty the product availability during a period (based on forecast). Logistic and re-handling of goods is part of our job. A strong experience based on the profiling of the consumers/catalogue helps our customer to make the right choice.
Assorted display for Retailers
After all those decades of sourcing, we identified a wide range of useful products. Since those are so different the one from the others, we created 2 umbrella brands to cover 2 universes. Genius ideas is our brand for Houseware products and Wellys the brand for Healthcare and Beauty.
Specifics of this market: Supermarkets, retail chains and retailers are used to operate a static full and detailled range of products in specific universes. The margin in retail is around 2-3 times on purchase cost. Special event displays are often used, mainly for discount. The good thing is that those displays bring animation with unusual products.
How we reply to those needs: We create displays of various sizes with or without video screens (we film a demo video for each product, for free). The branding could be ours or the customer’s one. As soon as the product line is fixed, we can design the display that will reply to our distributor needs. When possible, we can even prepare ready displays with assorted merchandise from China. Retailer just have to unwrap and place the display. All those pre-processes will save a lot of charges and bring a better revenue for our distributors. We can perform some market tests with our French stock.
Web Shops
Online Shops has been a natural evolution of our historical experience in mail order. At the early beginning is was just about to create a shop and to get known. Then the game changed every 5 years. From newsletter, to deals, to market places and now social media selling. The rules may have already changed when you will read those lines. Most important is to observe and change your business to the next level.
Specificity of this market: Most consumer will feel like this is an easy business, but forget it. It is always about to renew the traffic by advertising on different media or to share your profit with a market place. The margin is to be at least 3 to 4 times on top of the purchase price. A unique function and a nice design are highly expected and the product must be understood from a set of picture, with bullet points.
How we reply to those needs: We decided to focus on unique and useful products. We trust that pictures are just not enought. Establishing our own studio offers a digital content instantly. We guaranty the product availability for long period and offer a drop shipping solution. We know that the quantities remain relatively low. We are flexible but we focus on the number of assorted skus, with monthly shipments.
Drop Shipping and Drop shippers
Drop shipping is more and more popular. There is quite a difference behind those words. Drop shipping is the a service offered by an importer, a wholesaler, a manufacturer. It is a logistic service to deliver the consumers on the distributor instructions. Initially, this service was reserved to voluminous item, which save cost and warehouse management. A “drop shipper” is a distributor that will operate up to 100% of its business with this service. Drop shippers are usually operating on digital platforms and most operate on single product pages.
Specificity of this market: To operate a drop ship, all the channel from the supplier to the distributor must be adapted. A drop shipped business mostly change the shipping charges. Each product has to support its own shipping charges. This could save some charges for voluminous items or for seller of a single products. But this can also be an important charge for the distributor who operates multiple products from various suppliers. In such case, each product will have to support its how delivery charge. Tricky to apply on a multiple product consumer order… Then the price of an item must include the shipping charge. A “drop ship” retail price is not about a standard margin, but about the real full cost + profit. As an exemple a product sold on a multiple product order can’t benefit of the consolidation of few products in a unique parcel. For drop shippers that operate a single product webpage with high advertising charges, a 2 euro product has to be sold at minimum 25 to 40 euro to leave a profit….
How we reply to those needs: We have a unique range of product that bring something different. We have quite a story telling and offer texts, pictures and videos. Our marketing pack will already help our distributors. Our line is showing some product that can offer a margin of 3 to 5 times. We have a drop shipping service operated from Belgium with mapping to import the orders almost automaticaly. We can manage a similar process directly from our supplier chain in China. We produce on real time and ship on a weekly base.
Silver Economy
Mail order has been our native market. Those last 2 decades this market has shrink to focus on a senior target. As one the leading company of this market, we created a large range of useful products for this population. This profile of items represent more than 50% of our french assortment. This market is ultra dynamic.
Specificity of this market: Silver economy is covering a large range of products: Daily helpers, mobility device. The distributors of this market usually focus on mobility device and sell in medical shops. This market is applying quite a strong margin. It is a niche which doesn’t generate large volumes. It is mostly about large items (chairs, beds, bath tubes, …). Daily helpers are ultra medical orientated. In between products are still not explored. Items have to be strictly mobility products to be on the shelves.
How we reply to those needs: We offer a “in between” range of daily helpers. Not really medical but whatever useful for our seniors. We branded our products in a box with pictures to explain easily the function of the product. Text has been reduced to the strictly necessary. Seniors are more and more familiar with QR code usage. All our products have a demo video QR code on the box and in the manual. The retail price of our products in mail order is to be 3 to 5 times behind our price. This mean that a distributor can be a middle man to manage a retail distribution (we don’t serve shops by ourselves). We trust that each sell channel must offer a silver line. Our collection can be installed in most healthcare/hygiene corners.
Dedicated to humans !
The GD Import story is about creating a successful family business with the right people.
It is all around humans and being dedicated to each other success.
We don’t work with customers, nor suppliers. We work with partners which most entered in a friendly relation.
We don’t expect to “just sell products”. We question each other permanently to bring more services, more products, more human relations,…
We take care of people with always one step ahead. This is how we do in a world that sometimes forget human and life priorities.
