NEWSLETTER - SMALL BUSINESS

PIERS: Your Key to Competitive Research

by Dave Williams, International Trade Specialist
Spring 2003

The International Trade Center has a powerful resource that few companies know about: the Port Import Export Reporting Service (PIERS). PIERS, compiled and distributed monthly on CD-ROM by the Journal of Commerce, is a database of all incoming and outgoing U.S. ocean bills of lading. The ITC subscribes to the outgoing (export) service but also has a historical review of incoming (import) records.

Although expensive, PIERS is one of the few top-quality methods of obtaining competitive data.  Sure, you can use macro export statistics to find out what your industry is shipping overseas, but what if you want to find out what your major competitors are doing?  PIERS is the answer.  Searches can be conducted using a variety of fields including exporter/importer name and address, product name or description, U.S. and overseas departure port, and U.S. and overseas destination.  This is a method to find out, by competitor name, exactly what products and quantities they are shipping overseas or which foreign components they are importing and from whom.

There is one potential drawback, however, on the export side.  Because the shipper’s export declaration (SED) may be filled out by a freight forwarder, some actual manufacturers do not appear in the records.  The freight forwarder or broker may appear instead.  This will change when (and if) the SED includes an “interested party” field.  This is not the case on the import side though, as the destination is almost always the final user. Even with this challenge, PIERS is the most valuable source of competitive information on the market short of conducting expensive company specific market research. 

The ITC regularly uses PIERS as a tool in its market research for our clients. One client used PIERS to find out who is buying their chemical in Europe, another used PIERS to find a supplier and cut out a broker, and a third client used PIERS to find out exactly which products within a harmonized code were being shipped overseas.

Contact the ITC for help with competitive research for your foreign markets. For more information on PIERS, you can also contact the company via their website at www.piers.com.