ImportYeti is a free website that can help you find suppliers or manufacturers for certain companies.

If you are interested in a company or its products, enter that company’s name in the search bar, and the site will give you results.

You can get supplier data like contact information (most of the time) and search for products using the H.S. code.

Import Yeti is a research tool to know where your competition is buying their products, from which supplier, which port and other information based on customs data.

Detailed software review of Importyeti.com

The website homepage has a minimalistic layout. Searching for companies is easy.

You can use the search bar, click random or sign in.

You can use the website without signing up. For now, signing up for the site will give you the option to provide feedback or say thank you.

You’re given more searches if you’re signed in, and you can save your searches or download them if you like.

The best feature of the site comes down to the powerful search feature. You can check a random company or competitor on Amazon and see their suppliers.

For example, I typed in a random company, Knipex Tools, which I found on Amazon. This could be a company that you want to know more about.

This site will give you supplier data.

You will be able to see who supplies the most for Knipex Tools. Sort by supplier country, shipment date, total shipments, and product descriptions.

From this view, you will see a visualization of supplier activities. Data like top ports shipped from, top ports shipped to, top states shipped to, and imports per country.

This tool also lists alternate company names and addresses.

When exporting data, you can download CSV files to save locally.

Alternatives to ImportYeti

These data are publicly available, and sites like ImportYeti make the information stream more accessible with better formatting and visualizations.

That’s why there are other alternative tools you can use if you don’t like ImportYeti.

PartnerLinQ

This tool is a supply chain solution for retail trade. It does something similar with ImportYeti. It has a simplistic but futuristic user interface. 

They provide fantastic helpful services, including the Business Rules Manager, Partner Onboarding, Error Reporting, and Dashboard Analytics. Analytics have streamlined the procedure and let me see the whole picture. 

Partner onboarding was time-consuming, but it has since been made much simpler.

What we like

✔️ Simple but powerful interface
✔️ Easy to use dashboard analytics

What we don’t like

❌ Steep price

Zonos

The most crucial feature for us was fraud protection to help vetting an online order, giving us the confidence in a “ship” or “don’t ship” scenario after they review orders. Zonos had all the features we were looking for, including shipping quotes, taxes and duties, local currencies, and most important for us, fraud protection to help vet an online order.

What we like

✔️ Knowledgeable customer service
✔️ Great eCommerce website integration

What we don’t like

❌ Can miss a few orders for some

ImportKey

Another service that formats customs import data into something that people can make sense of easily. They claim to have AI software using US and global import, and export data, and present them in a nice way to enable their users to make good business decisions based on that data. 

What we like

✔️ Easy to navigate
✔️ Well-organized data

What we don’t like

❌ Free trial is only available for enterprise version

Panjiva

If you’re interested in learning more about numerous huge importers in distinct U.S. major base ports, this is the website to use. Similar to ImportYeti, you can see who is the biggest shipper and the kinds of goods that are arriving at the ports.

What we like

✔️ Filtering new companies is easy
✔️ Create your dashboard

What we don’t like

❌ Hard to filter out old companies
❌ Very expensive

TradeMo Intel

TradeMo can provide you with information about international trade participants such as buyers (importers), suppliers (exporters), international trade consultancies, global freight forwarders, and trading finance institutions. Like ImportYeti, this is also a platform that is effective in finding buyers and reliable manufacturers and suppliers.

What we like

✔️ Data trends can help manage risks
✔️ Reasonable subscription price

What we don’t like

❌ Missing some companies

How to hide my information on ImportYeti?

There is a great article from QualityInspection.org about hiding your information from sites like ImportYeti. 

All you have to do is not mention your company name in the bill of lading. Or use another company for your importing needs.

To summarize:

• Requesting that the bill of lading be issued “to order of [your freight forwarder]” is one trick to hide your name. In this manner, your business is not the importer in your documents.
• Reissue the bill of lading and establish a business in Hong Kong. In the event that someone looks for your company name on ImportYeti, this tactic conceals the identity of the source.
• Use a different business to handle your importation needs. You can easily start a different import firm with a name completely unrelated to the one you already use for business. Then you make a domestic purchase from the said company.

Why Amazon sellers should use it?

Amazon Sellers should use this tool because it’s a great way to research competition and retrieve supplier data.

The tool has all the data you need on one page. Be it about manufacturers and suppliers and supply chains. 

Here’s a good use case from the developer.

“Who makes American Barbell’s epic dumbbells? Answer: Top Asia Sport Industrial.”

If you search in Alibaba for a barbell supplier, another supplier will surface as number 1, Nantong Leeton Fitness Co., but apparently, this company is primarily a resistance band company. 

It means they probably outsource their heavy metal work, making their barbells more expensive.

Another example is that this tool will answer questions like Who are the leading importers and exporters of women’s suits and ensembles under HS Code 62.04.19? 

ImportYeti is a great tool to look at publicly available data like this presented in a human-readable format.