Fernando Jimenez

• Market-driven pricing is the most common approach to export pricing. Under this strategy, you keep your product’s price flexible and responsive to market conditions like demand and supply, inflation etc. This is particularly useful for commodities/products for well-established and stable markets; but remember too much exposure to market forces can also cause instability in your pricing.
• Skimming pricing involves you charging a higher price for your product to recover preliminary expenses and reap high profits but decreasing it to increase market share. Again, this is better adopted with products with established markets or high demand, as customers in a new market might not be open to paying high prices initially.
• Penetration pricing requires you to charge a low price to penetrate the market and weed out competition. This policy is often used for items of mass consumption and is also called ‘dumping’.
• Pre-emptive pricing is like penetration pricing, except the exporter’s sole aim here is to discourage competition. Pre-emptive pricing may mean fixing your price lower than the cost of the product, on the assumption that in the long run, market domination will help generate profits. Both penetration and pre-emptive pricing are high-risk strategies, but if effectively managed, they can have high payoffs in the form of market domination and virtual monopolies. 

The term "Cost, Insurance and Freight" means that the seller has made delivery when the goods have crossed the ship's rail at the port of shipment. The seller must pay the costs and freight required to bring the goods to the named port of destination, BUT the risk of loss or damage to the goods, as well as any additional costs incurred after the goods have been shipped, pass from the seller to the buyer.

However, under the terms of the CIF term, the seller is also obliged to purchase marine insurance in favor of the buyer against the risk of loss and damage to the goods during transport.

Consequently, the seller is obliged to conclude an insurance contract and pay insurance premiums. The buyer should take into account that under the terms of the CIF term, the seller is required to provide insurance with only minimal coverage.

If the buyer wishes to have insurance with a large coverage, he must either specially agree with the seller about this, or he himself must take measures to conclude additional insurance.

These are the goods listed in ITC (Indian Trade Classification) (HS) which are strictly prohibited on all import channels in India. These include wild animals, tallow fat and oils of animal origin, animal rennet, and unprocessed ivory.

Canalized goods are items which may only be imported using specific procedures or methods of transport. The list of canalized goods can be found in the ITC (Indian Trade Classification) (HS). Goods in this category can be imported only through canalizing agencies. The main canalized items are currently petroleum products, bulk agricultural products, such as grains and vegetable oils, and some pharmaceutical products.