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Traditional Medicine - Distribution

Hi everyone, my name is Menkashoo. I have access to a huge network of traditional healers and they have a big supply capacity. The idea is to buy the product at a very decent price, do the branding and the marketing in the West and then give some of the profit back to this community of healers. I need guidance with starting the business, import & distribution regulations, health claims, and eventually I was also thinking of creating an online hub to provide customers with a lot of information and propose online healing services. Is it too much?

Thank you

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7 answers

It is likely too much. I would be asking your supply why they are holding on to so much supply? If they aren't selling they need to slow down production otherwise it makes no sense. Why isn't it selling locally? Do people think its bogus? These questions need to be asked. As far as distribution you can go through many mediums but I highly recommend reaching out to and talking to almost anyone at Alibaba. They have extensive connections in getting massive amounts of products from one place to another.

as far as regulations. If this is not FDA certified and not "real" medicine then you'll have to sell it in the vitamin market and show on the package that there are no studies and no FDA approval. You can help that case if you can partner with a university or someone to do a study for that traditional medicine. If you can get the results to indicate that the traditional is in some way "better" in a way that's marketable against modern medicine then you've got something good. Its just that in most instances that doesn't end up being the case. So be careful when investing your time and money into those endeavors. just some food for thought.

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Thanks Pascal. The supplier is not holding on to its products, it just jas the ability to produce a lot if needed. For now they actually sell locally and also internationally through a few retailers. It is just not branded mor marketed correctly. As for clinical trial, I want to avoid that route. Ultimately these products could be sold as teas with the mention "helps with..." if the laws allows it. If not, it will be another type of claim then.

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Ah ok. The laws do allow it. I can speak at least in the US the verbiage can be disclaimed anywhere in legal text as well. So you can make claims such as “helps with anxiety” and then disclaim on your website in a think layer of legal text that it may not explicitly do what it says on the bottle. Laws in the US permit this. However if you explicitly state something does something then you would need supporting evidence. Hence why a lot of non FDA approved modern or traditional medicines take that route and are sold OTC.

Where your real opportunity lies is if you can fix their marketing. You can do this by advertising on relevant websites and perhaps going through chain pharmacies and partnering with them. Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid in the US example. Produce to them the amount of sales they can make off of your product and you may find it being sold on their shelves. To make your claim stronger you can also pay for your own independent study. That way you could put on there that someone credible looked at your product and saw that it does what it says it does. Just some food for thought.

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I agree with Pascal! A large amount of what these healing products need is good marketing. Let me know if you need some help with your business plan, email me at danilopena@utexas.edu

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