Manuel was born in Austria in a little town called Melk. Asia has always fascinated him, ever since he can remember.

His professional career started in 1998 when he worked for Austria’s biggest DIY retailer Baumax.

He moved to Hong Kong in 2005 when he was offered a position as an intern at their sourcing office in Hong Kong, with a staff over 200 people.

For the next 11 years he worked with some of the biggest retailers in the world, developing, sourcing, and finding new products for them in China. These retailers included: Metro, Rewe, OBI, Carrefour, Tesco, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Auchan, Lowes, Sears, Home Depot, and many others.

As you can imagine, the big retailers expect their products to do more than just conform to standards and regulations when they purchase them in Asia. They need to be of the highest standard and quality. These retailers cannot afford to have a product recalled due to quality problems or defective components. These products need to be top-notch.

In those 11 years he got to know all about the standards and product requirements, and additionally gained a lot of experience and insight working with factories in China.

Not just that. he learned a lot about China, its culture, and its manufacturing facilities:

Where and how to find the best suppliers
How to negotiate and communicate with them
How to arrange business travel for my customers
And a lot more…

This book is a step-by-step guide walking you through the process of importing goods from China from the beginning to the end. It has been downloaded over 12,000 times and constantly sits at the top of the Bestselling ranks on Amazon.

Besides Mandarin-Gear a consumer products brand based in Hong Kong that is selling to worldwide customers, Manuel founded and runs ImportDojo, a website dedicated to helping people mastering the import/export industry. Manuel has also written 3 further books on the subject that are available on Amazon. Due to his experience Manuel has been invited to speak at eCommerce and import from China related conferences around the world.

Outside of work you will find Manuel spending lots of time exercising and hiking the mountains of Hong Kong.