When sourcing goods from China, you have to face a difficult matter: choosing the right supplier. You have to check if your potential supplier is credible and if their terms are acceptable to you. To make this task easier for you, we prepared for you a list of issues that you should ask your future business partners about. There are 10 questions for Chinese suppliers that are worth asking before starting the cooperation.
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One of the basic questions you should ask the supplier is about MOQ. MOQ is a minimal amount of goods for which the order can be realized. Due to the bulk nature of most orders, the price is a factor that changes along with the amount of ordered product. The more pieces of product you order, the better price you may get. At the same time, it means that you should first take an interest in MOQ and then the unit price, as this price will be conditioned by the order volume.
It is worth noting that strict adherence to the MOQ is, of course, a matter of the supplier’s will, and they may change the MOQ during negotiations. This carries the risk of receiving products of worse quality as dishonest suppliers may want to recompensate themselves for the smaller order with saving materials costs.
When ordering products, you should check if you are dealing with the actual manufacturer or only a so-called “trading company,” a middleman. As a rule, purchasing a product from a trading company usually means lower MOQ limits but also carries a bigger risk. It is not a direct manufacturer, so in case of faulty products, it is hard to blame the responsibility on them. Due to this, it is very sensible to verify who actually is our supplier.
Due to the fact that product samples may differ from the actual batch manufactured for you, a reasonable method to verify it is conducting quality control. Factory inspection in China may be carried out at various stages of production.
If the seller refuses to have an inspection carried out (of course, they have the right to do so), it takes away their credibility. In that case, it is better to choose another supplier.
An important matter you should mention in your negotiations with a business partner is how much you want to change the initial project, its design, and the production process. It is defined as OEM and ODM.
If you want to adjust the product to your brand, it is necessary to determine this matter at the beginning stages of negotiations with a potential supplier.
Particular regions of China are specialized in certain branches of the industry. It is worth finding out the exact address of the factory as it will make it easier for you to verify it by conducting the audit or pinpointing the factory on the industry map in China.
Incoterms are internationally standardized short terms of International Commercial Terms. You should, in advance, determine the obligations of you and your business partner. It is also good to know what mode of transportation your supplier uses. Depending on the chosen mode of transportation, the time of delivery will differ. It is worth negotiating those matters, so they align with your preferences.
It is worth asking if your business partner has any certificates or if they have conducted audits. A good practice is to ask an open question, as it will get you more information than asking only about specific certificates.
If you import to the EU, the document that you will be interested in most cases will be a Declaration of Conformity, that means that a particular product fulfills quality and health regulations and is safe, so it can be sold on the territory of the European Economic Zone. You should also remember that the received certificate should be verified to confirm its authenticity.
To minimize the risk of being scammed, it is good to ask for a copy of a Chinese business license. The document is often forged, so you should make sure to receive a scan in color of good quality and to further verify the information contained in the document (it is fully in Chinese).
You can have a chosen Chinese supplier verified in a matter of days!
To make sure what your supplier represents, you should ask about their clients, if they regularly send products abroad, if they have any references from past business partners, or ask for them to make a list of clients available to you.
Your product will probably be in transit for a long period of time. You can ask your supplier for photos of the products packaged for other clients to make sure that your order will endure the hardships of the travel.
A set of questions that you should ask your potential Chinese supplier may look like this:
Of course, throwing too many questions at a potential partner in the first or message is not recommended. You should follow the rules of Chinese business culture and establish a relationship. First, you should introduce yourself and talk a little about yourself, your company, and what you are looking for in a future business partner. The communication will be more efficient if you take your time.
Suppose your company just get a brand license and need to develop a totally new product range, how to find the correct suppliers in a short time and then start a successful business.
The purchasing assistant will search “Best China Manufacturer” on Google, but there’re thousands of results.
Your buyer knows well about B2B websites, from where you can have a quick response, but do you ever think about how the company is working behind the website.
Your team has the schedule to China twice or more times to attend the trade shows, do you know how the manufacturers who have attended the fair for 12 times, continuously for 6 years feel against the rise of Electronic Commerce.
Knowing the cost, it will be very efficiently and effectively to negotiate with new suppliers, which helps a lot to narrow down which is the most suitable suppliers for you.
Here I take ‘Car Vacuum Cleaner’ as an example product and help to analyze the things you don’t know. (All the companies mentioned in this article have no commercial purpose. )
Alibaba is the No. 1 B2B website and helps 120 thousand medium and small enterprises to have a platform with foreign buyers and make business easier. I’m sure you already have this skill and a lot of experience with it. Let’s search “Car Vacuum Cleaner” directly and see how is the result, and I will tell something useful behind it at the manufacturer’s side.
China as a world-wide factory, it develops a lot of B2B websites which provide an easy way to connect manufacturers and buyers easily. I list out the largest and most useful ones for the buyers. Here I take ‘Car Vacuum Cleaner’ as an example product and help to analyze their advantages and disadvantages (All the companies mentioned in this article have no commercial purpose. )
1.Alibaba
1)3 pictures above you look at the green rectangle circles. Every single keyword has only one Top Sponsored Listing and several Sponsored Listing which cost the company $3,000- $5,000 one year depends on different keyword or product. No one knows who will be the Top Sponsored next year, this cost is not a small budget for only one keyword.
Behind it: the sponsored listing is only valid for 1 year and renewal fee will be much higher if it has very big sales in this keyword.
2)You can see their establish years of these top 5 companies are mostly 1 year or 2 years, only one has 6 years. Alibaba is a 20-year company and the first group companies who earned a lot of money in Alibaba are all over 10 years. Who pays more money to Ali, they can rank on the first page. The old suppliers who already have stable business are focusing more on long term business, no longer beating hard to take market shares, while the new manufacturers are doing this crazily.
The basic fee of Ali is ￥29,800 = $4,500, new factories pay for extra service like P4P and generally spend $8,000 annually.
Behind it: a) new fresh companies receive orders at a very low profit, which in turn has an influence in product quality and service.
B)It’s hard to find the old & excellent suppliers or they are already zero out of Ali.Alibaba is the No. 1 B2B website and helps 120 thousand medium and small enterprises to have a platform with foreign buyers and make business easier. I’m sure you already have this skill and a lot of experience with it. Let’s search “Car Vacuum Cleaner” directly and see how is the result, and I will tell something useful behind it at the manufacturer’s side.
It’s mainly for Electronics, Lifestyle, Hardware and Fashion product as shown on its homepage.
As I search “Car Vacuum Cleaner”, there’re only 10 suppliers which is much less than I thought, while in Ali there are 15 pages, 38 suppliers each page. The reason why so less member is the high annual fee, from $6,000 to $56,000 from 1-star service to 6-star service. You can understand only the very large company can cover the cost and renew year by year. They’re usually 4-star or 6-star service, 15+ years.
But one of their specialty is that they hold their own trade show every year in Hongkong. You can find their trade show history from the home page. If you’re looking for Electronics or Gifts, you can visit it and try to send some inquiry.
The company is the world’s best china tools wholesaler supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.
MIC has two kinds of the member, golden member $5,000 per year, diamond member $7,500 per year. I search the supplier list and find only 1 factory who produces “car vacuum cleaner” in the first 5 pages, all the others named as Yuyao xxx are SOHO which is never heard before.
If you’re looking for machines, you may use MIC and ask for an inquiry.
is a Chinese website under Alibaba, which operates the wholesale business in China. I won’t tell you that it has a lot of useful and real information which you can also learn from. If you know some Chinese or you’re good at translation tool, you can do this job very well. Let’s do as follows.
1) Search English name “car vacuum cleaner”, in the results you can see its corresponding Chinese name
2)
3) Copy the Chinese name and search the supplier.
4) Here comes the supplier information, year, main product.
5) The most important is that it shows the exact product cost, just not including tax, and freight cost. No need to ask anybody, you can get the exact product prices.
If you only buy small quantities of new products, take these 5 steps to check what the cost of the manufacturer is. Then go back to negotiate with the suppliers who already gave you a quotation. Only note to get rid of some agent companies which offer twice or more time price on this Chinese website.
It would be much easier if you have a translate tool. I will recommend you a plug-in LingoCloud into Chrome.
See the picture again.
While you have potential suppliers, make a trip to visit the shows, take a close look at them.
You can’t miss the biggest trade fairs in China
This fair held in Guangzhou, and it was established since , twice per year. The Spring Canton Fair in April will be the 125th. It is the No. 1 fair in China, with the longest history and largest scale.
In the year of , very few buyers came to Canton Fair, they have to pay cash as a deposit at the booth. Buyer can earn a lot of money whatever they import from China. But now it’s quite different from the development of globalization and rapid growth of E-commerce. It can’t happen again that some customer will write the order at the booth because they have too many choices, there’re lower and much lower prices.
Now the biggest fair is only a place to have a meeting with the old customers, say Hi to those familiar buyers we are never able to have a chance to work with and quote to those who are not able to buy the price and quantity. The situation changes, but luckily you will get the warmest welcome from the potential suppliers. You visit their booth to know them more, checking their ability, price, and products. If you’re new to Canton Fair, please click to my another post – How to tell the company’s ability only through its Booth No.
After that, you can have a good idea of what the companies are like and take 2-3 days to check their office and factory.
So you’d better have 5-7 days for this business trip, you can decide which supplier to cooperate.
This show starts since , now it’s the 15th fair. It is the biggest show for Auto Parts, Electronics, Accessories, and all others. It’s quite young if compared with Canton Fair, but I start its location to analyze why you should attend this show in the near future.
Canton is in South China, it’s a great cost for those manufacturers from Shandong province, Jiangsu province and Zhejiang province – China’s four major economic provinces all the history. This show offers more opportunities for Medium or small manufacturers from these provinces. You can find very good suppliers who never attend the Canton Fair. Shanghai is the most developed city in China, there are already many buying offices, but it will increase more because the manufacturers are near here, it can reach every factory not over 3 hours by high-speed train.
This fair opens in Hongkong from April 11-14th, just before the Canton Fair. The overseas customers usually fly to Hongkong and spend one or two days in this show before the Canton Fair. There’s no offline show that can compete with Canton Fair in all aspects. They have two strong points.
If you have already some manufacturer names, try to do some search in the engine. You will find some important information. I recommend below two.
You know Google all too well, I am not going to say something you’re too familiar with. You see this post from Google and that’s the point. More and more Chinese suppliers like me are building their independent website and promoting their service and products on Google.
We are knowing that foreign buyers will search for products, vendors, and anything on Google. It’s really a great opportunity for us. We see that, and we build the site especially for buyers, design the best style to attract them. You find the link of a vacuum cleaner, which comes from my personal website. You send an inquiry and I send a quote as all the platforms do. There could be a lot of business. Every page visitor counts and helps to grow this site, day by day.
While in the B2B platform, the pages will be zero out when stop to pay money to them no matter you’re their members for 15 years. Secondly, the suppliers in Google are usually potential suppliers because they’re much close to their customers. They offer the best service, make the quickest quotation, offer free samples, arrange airport pick-up and a factory visit. They do everything to get trust from the buyers and then start cooperation. It’s different from B2B websites.
If you want to be a great buyer, you need to go further. Chinese people us Baidu, it’s one of the top 3 companies in China. We search for everything here. For foreign buyers, try to learn and use Baidu with a translation tool. You can have a lot of information about your potential suppliers when it was established, is there any corporate dispute.
While the factory bosses are reviewing all the order records from paid B2B platforms, they have no choice to pay money on another member cost.
When the factory sales are updating the same products with different tile repeatedly, they know that’s no meaning but have to do.
While you are getting the BEST ever price after many bargaining during 20 factories, you may receive very low-quality products.
That’s the thing that could happen every day. A good supplier is great support of your business. It’s the same situation for a Chinese trading company, Chinese source agent. 10 manufacturers with a definite partnership can drive 2 million business easily. But before owing these 10 manufacturers, we had to go through a lot of things.
We may know each other through a friend and start the cooperation after half a year, and then keep the long term partnership. Or to catch the ship we go to the packaging line and work together with all the workers to the midnight, from that day we built close workship. Or after several orders, we receive major quality complaints from the customer and face a large amount of compensation, we investigate the root cause and set up an improvement plan to regain the trust of our clients and minimize the loss.
After we fixed all these problems and we trust each other and we are knowing we can fix all the future issues together whatever it happens. That’s what we gain after many things, that’s the gold we show to you. If you have one of these kinds of suppliers, it’s your money and time.
Money is that we offer the best price and quality, no worry about the quality problem. You have us, we are the warranty, we’re responsible for everything. Time is that we are familiar with you, we know what time you will open the box, which product details we have to make, what order must be early & quick delivery. It saves working time and improves efficiency. All these are just only a small part, we can fix every point which can create a totally different effect than normal suppliers.
For example, when you have 5 factories to visit in one day, how to make the job perfectly. With our profession and knowledge, we set out the best route and make the priorities and must-ask questions. Then go straightly to the workshop or test laboratory or showroom. Finish all 5 visits, get all the information we need, we can still have time to have a great dinner. You will stay at a nice hotel, have a good rest and then another day. That creates wealth, and that’s our goal.
If you’re looking for Auto Accessory & Automotive Tools, please visit my independent site: www.sehentools.com, I am such kind of supplier, and looking for 1-2 buyers, we can develop both businesses smoothly.
With these 10 tips, I am sure you can have a better understanding of Chinese suppliers. Hope you to find the most suitable suppliers and purchase the most correct products, that brings you as many profits as possible.
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit screwdriver supplier.