We sell into 20 countries, it’s just as easy as the UK market

‘EXPORTS are a bit like trunk phone calls: people think they are quite hard – but they are not that difficult at all.’

That is the opinion of 44-year-old Trevor Ginn who set up Hello Baby Direct ten years ago, and now makes 55 per cent of his sales overseas.

He adds: ‘We sell into 20 countries and it is just as easy in many ways as selling in the home market – just a case of shoving a different label on to a product and putting it into a different bag.’

Trevor’s products, which include everything from baby black-out blinds to travel systems, are popular with the Asian middleclasses who do not always trust everything they buy from their own countries.

Even though many of the products are made in China in the first place, many parents in Asia would still rather buy something that had been shipped to the UK and then shipped back again. Trevor explains: ‘When we buy from a manufacturer in the UK we presume it is safe. We know we are dealing with proper product guidelines.

‘In China they make all of this stuff and it passes tests, but they do not sell it in their home market. They ship it here and it gets an official quality stamp.

‘That is why people in China are interested in buying our products. They know it is safe and are willing to pay for that. It is particularly important with baby goods, of course, as people need to know they are safe.’ Trevor, from Hertfordshire, set up his business because he thought he could do better than other online retailers.

He now employs six people and has annual sales of £2 million.

He says: ‘We are bigger than someone who sells out of his or her bedroom, but we are still not a major player.

‘But we like selling internationally using trading websites. There are no big management fees or deposits, you just plug into the current systems and off you go.’