Top 3 Questions About Customs Data
Many exporters have questions when using customs data, such as:
• Why is data from some countries incomplete?
• Why do some companies have no contact information?
• What’s the difference between customs data platforms?
Here are the 3 most common questions explained briefly.
1️⃣ Why is customs data incomplete in some countries?
Customs data comes from official disclosures by each country’s customs authority, and transparency policies vary widely.
Generally, countries fall into three categories:
- Fully open – Countries like the United States, India, Vietnam, and Brazil publish detailed shipment records, including company names.
- Partially open – Some countries only publish trade statistics (HS codes, values, partner countries) without company details.
- Not open – Due to privacy or policy restrictions, some countries do not release enterprise-level trade data at all.
So when some platforms claim “200+ countries coverage,” it doesn’t always mean all countries have real company-level data. Some datasets are only estimated from partner-country records.
2️⃣ Why do some companies have no phone or email?
This is another common question.
In many countries, contact information is not a required field on bills of lading, so some shipment records simply don’t include emails or phone numbers.
To solve this, 52WMB provides a contact discovery tool that automatically searches the web and social platforms using company name, website, or product keywords to find emails, key contacts, and social profiles.
This can save a lot of time compared to manual searching.
3️⃣ What are the advantages of 52WMB customs data?
With 15 years of experience and 1.5M+ users, 52WMB focuses on making customs data more practical for exporters.
Key advantages include:
✔ Weekly data updates to keep customer information fresh
✔ Broader data sources – including Belt & Road trade data, global company data, and Canton Fair buyer data
✔ AI-powered lead generation to automatically match potential buyers
✔ Self-developed data cleaning technology to standardize company names, remove duplicates, and improve accuracy
✔ One-on-one customer support to help users get started quickly
Customs data can be a powerful tool for finding real buyers — once you understand how the data actually works.





