Our office in Chandler, Arizona
Global Trade Specialists, Inc. was founded in 1991 by Mike Genung; the company’s original name was MG Trading & Development.
Mike had worked for an importer and distributor of machine tool products from 1981–1990, and had extensive experience in international sales and marketing, product development, and importing from countries such as China, Taiwan and Japan.
He took his first buying trip to Mainland China in 1986 when China was still a new frontier economically, and has been to China many times since.
In it’s early years, the company’s focus was to help U.S. and Canadian companies import machine tool products and measuring tools used in the metalworking industries (automotive, aerospace and all machine shops) from China. Many of the factories we worked with had to possess technical expertise, as some of the gages we sold had tolerance requirements at the micron level (millionths of an inch.) A number of our customers were large distributors, (some of who were publicly traded and had annual sales in excess of USD$200 million per year) who imported container loads of precision tools, cutting tools and gages of many types.
The business grew quickly, and in 1994 we created and developed our own line of machine tool products. The flagship product was a line of tool grinding machines with a retail value of $4,000.00 that we bought from a company that was getting out of the business. Sales of the tool grinders grew and by 1998 we were selling several hundred machines annually. In addition to the tool grinders we developed our own line of precision gage block sets and precision tools that we imported from China and warehoused in the U.S.. We sold these lines to an international distribution base of customers in North America, Europe and Asia.
In 1998, the decision was made to sell the tool line and focus solely on helping other companies import their products from China. China’s industrial base had grown substantially in the 90’s, and our Chinese friends gave us the ability to source a wide variety of products. The tool line was sold at a profit and the company’s name was changed to Global Trade Specialists, Inc.. Since then our sole mission has been to help companies import their products from reliable manufacturers in China.
Today we have customers in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and have sourced a wide variety of products for our customers. We work with three trading groups in China that are based in Qingdao, Ningbo and Shenzhen. From these regions we have access to much of China’s industrial base.
Even though we have processes in place to do our best to insure that you get a shipment without quality problems, we know that problems can arise no matter how hard everyone works to avoid them. If you get a shipment that isn’t to spec, we’ll work with the factory to get any defective product replaced.
Our experience in developing products from print to part and bringing them to market successfully is a plus for you; we sometimes give our customers pointers on how to get a product line up and going and what pitfalls to avoid. If you’re successful, we’re successful, and we strive to build relationships with our customers for the long term. We enjoy helping our customers succeed.
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