March 2004

Crackdown on exporters boosts interest in Shipping Solutions, president says

Export management software called Shipping Solutions is getting extra interest as the U.S. government cracks down on companies that sell to the wrong people or countries. So says David Noah, president of lnterMart Inc. in Eagan, a seven-year-old company that makes the software.

"There are lists of countries where you can't export your products, and a list of people that you can't export products to," Noah says. "There is a responsibility of U.S. companies to know who they're exporting to, and the penalties can be significant."

After 9/11, Noah says, regulators first focused on scrutinizing imports; now they're looking hard at exporters and began handing down high-profile fines last fall. "You're going to only see more and more of that in the future. That's where the focus is coming now," Noah says.

InterMart started as an exporter, shipping goods to Japan. "As a small company we were quickly bogged down in the paperwork," he says. "We went looking, figuring there was a software solution out there, and there were, if you had over $100,000 to spend. So we created a program to automate it just for ourselves, and our freight forwarder loved the documentation we were giving him."

The company changed focus to export documentation and compliance software, starting at $500 for companies that do just a few shipments a month, up to $1,499 for bigger exporters.

He says many customers are "accidental exporters." "They have a Web site, and they do the trade show circuit. They start getting some international orders. They may not realize what their obligations are as an exporter," Noah says.

This Article appeared in the March 2004 issue of Upsize Minnesota