I need to find people who sell mobile phones and also speak reasonable English. Not outlets for the big corporations, small independent dealers.
Any suggestions?
thanks.
Nova perhaps?
They seem to have some new program there to help English speaking foreigners buy stuff. If you need help someone will go with you to ask questions and stuff.
A lot of people speak good English in Nova anyway (well, good enough).
Get a Mandarin speaking foreigner to act as a middle man to the store of your choice.
Open a store.
[/end ideas]
More important than the phone dealer (who you will only have to see one time), consider which service provider you’ll use. From previous experience, FarEasTone seemed to have the best English service. Chunghwa Telecom is the worst in that regard. However, I’m using Chunghwa Telecom anyway because they have the best reception in rural areas (where I live). If you live in Taipei and seldom venture into the mountains with a mobile phone, that won’t be an issue. However, if you plan on taking your mobile for emergency communication while climbing Yushan, then Chunghwa Telecom is really your only choice.
cheers,
DB
I do agree that it’s important to choose a good provider, but, in case of an emergency I’m pretty sure anyone can can roam on any network (it cost a lot more though). But if your always in the boondocks then you’d want to go the route you took of course.
Thanks guys.
To clarify: I need dealers.
I’m waiting on paperwork from Taiwan Cellular Corp which will allow me to provide service to foreigners without any of this ‘IF’ card rubbish. We have a deal and an accounting system in place, now it’s down to the lawyers and the regulatory authorities. ‘Soft launch’ in mid-March, I hope.
When I had an IF card it worked out at about NT$22/minute. I can do rates from NT$12 all the way down to NT$6/minute. No guarantors. No 2-yr commitment.
But I’m not going to sell phones, and I can’t physically meet every customer to sign them up. The logical step is to find phone dealers all over Taiwan who speak English, introduce the package to them, and list them as ‘outlets’ from my website so that customers can go to ‘a store near you’ to get cheaper phone service.
Why don’t you find a good dealer, get a wholesale discount, and provide your customers with the option of buying a phone off you too. Pick one or two cheap and simple models, and if they don’t like it, they can go get their own.
Brian
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]Why don’t you find a good dealer, get a wholesale discount, and provide your customers with the option of buying a phone off you too. Pick one or two cheap and simple models, and if they don’t like it, they can go get their own.
Brian[/quote]
You want me to buy a van full of phones and spend my days driving around distributing them?
Or you want me to fill my spare room with phones and have my customers drive out to Lotus Hillto get one?
I would rather have a list of convenient dealers, who are open all day every day and have a wide variety of offerings. My ‘core business’ is phone service, enlisting distributors makes it easier to sell the service. Buggering around with handsets just takes my energy away from my core business, unnecessarily.
And I don’t want to tie up all my capital in a stock of phones. Anybody who wants to could always contact me. 
[quote=“Loretta”]Thanks guys.
To clarify: I need dealers.
But I’m not going to sell phones, and I can’t physically meet every customer to sign them up. The logical step is to find phone dealers all over Taiwan who speak English, introduce the package to them, and list them as ‘outlets’ from my website so that customers can go to ‘a store near you’ to get cheaper phone service.[/quote]
You’re a phone seller. But your sales channel is via distributors. If the problem of finding English speaking distributors is too great, do a direct-sales model (like Dell) --> sell through your website. The orders are then “dropped shipped” via any phone distributor because you’ll be faxing them a copy of the sales order to them to ship to the address on it.
So, instead of using manual labor to do it, you’re automating the system. The only thing you’ll need is a website to do e-commerce (simple, lots of them out there) and a fax machine and an admin who can read/write english-chinese and communicate with your shippers (via the fax machine and/or phone).
For helping you choose an e-commerce system, I can help you choose one and we have miltownkid who can host it for you as well as do simple development work on it.
Meanwhile, you can still have the time to develop your reseller network, negotiate with Aurora, NOVA etc.
EDIT: Sorry, reread your post Loretta. Would add that the service of the phones could be TCC if that’s the deal you’re promoting. You’re TCC’s reseller/agent and so TCC’s stores and current resellers be responsible for support of your plan & service. Just another thought.
Thanks for the input, guys.I do appreciate all and any suggestions, in case there’s anything I’ve forgotten. But read the post again. I am a service reseller, not a phone dealer. I’m not offering fixed-term plans with a phone included, nor am I simply marketing TCCs plans. I’m bulk-buying phone service and reselling it with my own rate plan which has no fixed term. That’s all, and it’s actually quite enough work without additional complications.
Becoming a phone dealer means buying stock I don’t want to buy, increases the complexity and scale of the business, and doesn’t solve the basic problem - my customers have to complete a form, and provide an ID copy. ie they still have to physically meet someone. Using a phone dealer seems to be the easiest way to do that. I send business to them. They do the initial paperwork, activate the SIM, and collect the deposit.
Also, my customers are, by nature, not going to have a TW credit card. (Anyone who has full banking services in this country will be able to get their own phone.) Therefore, anyone buying anything over the internet is going to get caught up in currency exchanges and money transfers to pay their credit card bill in their own country. Most would prefer to go to a store where someone speaks English, check out what’s available, and pay cash.
TCCs stores are not responsible for anything. If they could provide support and service in English, and their existing products were suitable, then they wouldn’t need me. I’m a wholly independent partner responsible for developing my own market through my own resources. I’m getting a lot of help and support from Head Office, but am not going to get much from their stores. Their dealers/agents might be able to help, but only if they speak English.
Hence, has anyone bought a phone from anyone who speaks English? Or do I have to go traipsing around all the dealers in Taipei trying to find one? Or does anyone else want to buy a bunch of phones and start their own dealership?
[forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … 514#304514](Collecting regular payments in TW from furriners
Discussion on how to collect the money.
[quote=“Loretta”]{Selling phone service}
Becoming a phone dealer means buying stock I don’t want to buy, increases the complexity and scale of the business, and doesn’t solve the basic problem - my customers have to complete a form, and provide an ID copy. ie they still have to physically meet someone. Using a phone dealer seems to be the easiest way to do that. I send business to them. They do the initial paperwork, activate the SIM, and collect the deposit.[/quote]
I still don’t understand why you are sending your customers to someone else to sign, seal and deliver and collect YOUR money? Having a party not affiliated with you to be responsible for your cash flow is sketchy. What’s to prevent these dealer/distributors from taking your customer and making a sale on another product/service? Maybe there’s something in your setup that is eluding me but based on this description, that’s how I see it.
There might be someone in Taoyuan. Or maybe there’s an opportunity here for other people.
Q: How will people pay their monthly bills ? Will TCC bill/collect on your behalf ? Will you accept payment in all convenience stores ? If you accept online payment, you could bill in local currency ie: USD/GBP, etc. you take the hit on exchange rates (although this could be built-in to the rate)
I would almost suggest for simplicity you leave the phone out of it, or potentially offer 2/3 models as std packages. Allow people to pay online and send out the SIM card by registered mail.
I also doubt dealers would tout the service (unless they earn more commish than selling the normal local service), so you would only really be sending them business clients, which they may convert to their own services.
That aside, I think the idea/business is cool… just need someone sales online sales, stuffing jiffy bags and running to the PO once a day. Could even offer same day Kwai-di del…
You might also want to check the latest offering from Frank Hsieh. Probably just the usual hot air, but apparently, high of his list of priorities is a heavy crackdown on telephone fraud, which will entail much stiffer restrictions on who is allowed to sell and distribute cellphones and packages. According to the story I saw yesterday on the wire, only the actual phone companies themselves such as Chunghwa, Fareastone etc. will be allowed to do it, cutting those “independent” dealers out of the picture altogether.
I’ll be collecting my own money every month. The whole point is that, for simplicity’s sake, I’M NOT SELLING PHONES! If someone else wants to sell phones then that’s great, and they’ll find it a lot easier to sell the phones if there is a service available that you can hook people up with so that they can actually use the phones.
My rates are approximately 1/3 of those charged by IF card vendors. Is there some competing service I have to worry about? If so, why has no-one ever heard of it? Why aren’t phone dealers selling it now? Perhaps they’re hooking all these newbie foreigners up with 2-yr contracts that don’t require guarantors? Yeah, right.
I’m not asking dealers to transact my business for me. I’m offering to send customers to them that they wouldn’t have otherwise. And as for this not trusting bullshit, all business involves an element of trust. Count the money in the till at 7-11 and ask yourself why the kid behind the counter doesn’t run off with it. If you go through life with the assumption that everyone is intent on stealing from you then you aren’t going to get far.
Instead of having to personally meet EVERY customer I want to give customers a choice of convenient places to go and get what they need at times that suit them. Why is that so hard for most of you to understand? Jeez!
Now here’s an update: I have a contact who needs 200 phones and accounts annually. That’s almost worth getting into the retail market to cater for, but I don’t want to if I can avoid it. I’ll be happy with my monthly %age on everyone’s phone bill, and busy doing the admin required.
For the final time, is there a phone dealer out there who speaks English and would like to make a few sales?
We, rather I, might be able to help ya out as I go all over Taipei. No, I don’t know them offhand right now as I’ve had my phone for the last year and only pop into the stores to check on some stuff for other friends. Name the areas you want and I’ll let ya know as I find them again.
Loretta, I’m curious about this as it seems like there would be a lot of potential. Does the dealer make a commission on the initial sale (deposit) only or the monthly air time too?
Would individuals be able to act as reps only, soliciting new accounts, receiving deposits, activating SIMS, verifying passports, without actually offering any phones at all?
I’m not very knowledgeable about mobile phone rates, but are your rates even lower than the rates that Taiwanese get for their phone contracts? I didn’t think that the IF rates were more than 3 times higher than the rates you get if you have a service plan.
I don’t know what IF charges any more, and that information never seemed to be published anyway. When I had a SIM through them I called the number to find out my crdeit, made a call, called the number again, subtracted the second nuber from the first, and divided it by the length of the call. It came out to NT$22/minute. If anyone wants to go through the same exercise and post the results here I’d be interested to know.
Compare that figure with NT$6-7/minute, depending on call volume. I personally pay NT$6.6/min on my post-paid plan, so I don’t think my rates are uncompetitive.
BH, and anyone else who wants to know: If you can or do make money from the sale of phones - retail of physical products - then I’d like to talk to you. I don’t want to deal with that stuff, I’m a service provider. I’ll also talk with anyone that can put business my way, but obviously I’m not going to discuss business in an open forum.
I did a search for the Taiwan DaGeDa prepaid rates. This is what I’m paying:
tcc.net.tw/eng/rate/rate_2.htm
Either 6NT/min for intra-network or 13.2NT/min for out of network.
By the way, it took me about 1 minute to find that with google. 
Can you break down your rates in a similar way, or is the fee the same regardless of if the call is within the same network?
Same regardless.