Notes from Importing/Sourcing from China – Gotchas/Lessons Meetup
I organized the meetup Importing/Sourcing from China – Gotchas/Lessons on Aug 27th. The speakers Wensheng Li and Andrew Rizzo shared great insights, many tips, gotchas and stories. Be sure to check out their presentation.
Here are my notes:
Sub-contracting is dangerous as you don't know about the actual supplier, thus cannot ensure quality.
Alibaba has a gold supplier certification programwhere each gold supplier is inspected thoroughly by Alibaba's inspectors.
Don't blame workers. Always blame boss because boss is the one ultimately sets the rule, standard and process.
Product specification must be created by sourcers. Asking a clone of another product is a invitation to different interpretations( eg: what kind of materials, what kind of quality standard) and quality nightmare. The product specification needs to be verified throughout production process.
Factories always say yes. You must establish a process to verify what they promise, what they say, what they deliver.
Pay attention to every detail. Eg: the product is of good quality. But the packaging of the product is horrible.
Must enforce documented paper trail for proving who verified what.
Always treat people with respect. Treat people well, they'd treat you well. If you, as a sourcer, demand ultra-low price, you'd get what you pay for: poor-quality product.
Must build relationship in China.
Transportation cost can be huge. Say you negotiate a very low price with a factory in-land. But the cost to transport the goods to a sea port can totally screw up your bottom line. It's always a good idea to make some alliance in logistics.
Pay close attention to customs. Eg: a bad custom declaration or a slight-off product description can have your products hold up at custom clearance for weeks.
Foreigners are bound to fail if they just go to big fairs like Canton fair and try to negotiate and get everything done at the fair. If you don't invest your time in China, you are not going to succeed.
China has specialized cluster areas that producing just one kind of product. Examples: Guzhen Town in Zhongshan city specializes in lighting, fixtures, LEDs. Shaxi Town in Zhongshan city specializes in clothing manufacturing. Literally, each of cluter is made up of hundreds of factories producing the same things. So you should just do some research on what products you want to source, find these clusters, and go for a couple of days instead of getting lost in big fairs.
