Finding suppliers in foreign countries

Librarian

For my up and coming online shop.

The thing is, I am going to trade with exotical insects, for people that wish to keep them as pets, namely ants, mantis, certain bugs, etc. everything insect related, which is pretty much a niche market.

For that I am currently establishing a network of people all over the world who will catch and send the animals to me, I've sucessfully established some ties to china, but definitely need more people to work with, especially from African countries and South America or Middle/North America.

So, has anyone here some experience in the importing business and can give me some recommendations on how to best work towards this goal, what to keep in mind and how to make sure that I won't get scammed?

Also, if someone here lives in Indonesia or Taiwan or Brazil or Nigeria or USA or wherever you think the local insect population might be interesting enough and you would like to get into business or know someone who does, I would be very interested.

EDIT: To clarify: I live in Germany and the shop will be located here, so anyone not living in central Europe might be able to help me out, this includes the mediteranean European countries like Italy, Greece, Spain or Croatia.

Ruckus

Maybe try contacting the entomology department at a university in the region you want specimens from, see if you can work out a deal (a bug bounty, if you will).

stigweard

I don't know about Germany, but there are import / export restrictions on live insects here. Even if Germany has no restrictions, the countries you want to export to might.

Librarian

Yes I know about possible restrictions and I am definitely going to make sure that none of these are violated.

I am not going to sell outside of Germany at first, so I should be fine once the animals have safely arrived here.

I do know that for example in the US there are even strict restrictions that ban the transport of certain insects to another state of the US, I am not so sure how these apply if you want to transport an animal to another country.

Librarian

For example this little fellow hails from Florida and Diplopoda like this are available in European shops, so it should be possible to import...

Thanatos

Talk to a lawyer, if you haven't already. You want to make sure you have all the correct licenses and paperwork filled out before you start doing this. Courts generally don't look too kindly on animal smugglers.

Librarian

Yep, since I am trying to get government funding for starting a business this will have to be waterproof, this is going to be official and not some sort of black market operation.

My main concern right now is finding trustworthy suppliers, so any ideas on how to work on that? Any official or unofficial codes of conduct I can refer to?
Is it for example alright to want a sample before you order anything?

Apothe0sis

What about New Zealand insects? Giant Wetas and that?

Librarian

New Zealand would be great