Sourcing Goods And Suppliers in China
Although the relative cost of manufacturing in China has risen in recent years, the country is still often the cheapest location for retailers and wholesalers from world source goods or parts.
So when you are the company which cannot afford to establish overseas offices or manufacturing operations, but you want effectively and efficiently source suppliers in China, then you have exploring suppliers from below method
Internet Search
You will easily start a search for suppliers in China via search engines such as Google, Bing, and other B2B sourcing platforms like Alibaba, Made-in-China.com, Globalsources.com, thousand of suppliers are listed on these sites, and you can find lots of tips for reliable search suppliers in Alibaba.
Social Media Identify
Sometimes social media is an ideal platform to identify suppliers, some suppliers may have a social media presence, but they could be a good source for feedback or reviews of potential suppliers, but we have to say, you will have to make your own decision, sometimes the positive reviews or comments are often unverified,
Anyway, there are lots of groups on Facebook, Linkedin,, also forums such as Alibaba Forum, smart China Sourcing for your to identify suppliers, and you can also check complaint experience from site www.ripoffreport.com.
Trade Shows/ Fairs
So you must hear Canton Fair before, the biggest Trade fair in China, Trade shows are another way to find legitimate suppliers. By attending trade shows, you have the opportunity to talk to potential suppliers face to face about their companies, products, production capacity, quality-control procedures, and other key business areas. Such direct interaction can help you evaluate suppliers and verify their abilities.
How to Identify Suppliers?
We all know the only reliable way to verify a supplier’s production capabilities is to visit the supplier, then you can know if the supplier is suitable for yours. If they are your best supplier?
Anyway, here are 10 tips for you to verify the supplier’s capacity before you go check with them on the field. But we have to say the tips are not absolute.
Tip 1. Company History
A good supplier should be better over 5 year’s history and have an export/import business for at least 3 years. Based on your products, you decide to choose the manufacturer or trading company to work with, some trading companies have their advantages.
Tip 2. Amount of Employee
The employee in the factory should be better than 50-100. If you doubt the numbers from suppliers, you can ask them how many people in different departments, including R&D, Sales, Purchasing, QC, production line, then you can know their probable company size.
Tip 3. Factory location
We know a lot of suppliers in China Hebei, Henan, Guangxi, Tianjin, etc. are doing great export business, and the services are great too. We guess factory owners been working in Eastern China before, and now he/she back hometown to set up a new factory. But we would like to say that find suppliers from Eastern China will be better. Such as Guangdong, Fujian, Zhengjiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, etc.
Those provinces are more developed and understand what customers need better. And you will get more supporting in creative products and popular information from suppliers in China.
Tip 4. Official Website
Search the factory on Google and visit its website-how they describe the company or factory, how they describe the products or services before start cooperating, websites are to show their products and help clients find the required information in the most natural way.
Tip 5. Legal
Check the factory is private or state-owned, cooperate with individual factories will get a quicker response.
Tip 6. Sample
Send the factory samples and ask them to produce accordingly, find as many problems as possible after receiving samples-NEVER say, “your sample is great!” at the very beginning.
Tip 7. Workers treatment
If possible and you are willing to visit the factory and see the workshop, dining room, and washing room. You will get how a good factory treats its workers, these things may be effective to the quality of your products, but you will not know.
Tip 8. Factory Audit
While you visit the factory, talk with the one who speaks English from the factory and ask he/her several questions: how many employees, how many types of equipment, annual turnover and so on. If
he/she can reply immediately, this person can help with export handling, if you have no experience with these, find a third party inspection company to help with this.
More about Factory Audit Services in China & Asia
Tip 9. Inspection Checklist
Prepare your detail inspection checklist, set the quality level and tell the supplier what you need in details,
Suppliers in China can supply products at any prices-if you want good quality, you must tell directly, and let the factory know that third party inspection company will contact them to schedule Pre-shipment Inspection,
During production when the goods finished about 30-50%, arrange third party inspectors to do check if the factory is doing the right thing, before loading the first container-you should do final inspection by your own person, find problems with products and reject, then you would not need to fly to China every time before shipping date, later you can move your requirements to agency or third party inspection company.
Tip 10. Local 3rd Party
As we said in tip 9, if you are not planning to open WFOE(Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise) or other kinds of offices in China, it’s crucial to find a local representative or third party inspectors to help you to double ensure products can finish in a right quality level before cut off date, better find a local representative assist you.
Anyway, find and select a good supplier is not easy. Lots of companies have a team in the supply chain department working on it. But we also have a lot of options available in these years to look for suppliers and manufacture your products, a quality control team outsourced can work for your interests.
Related: How Third-Party QC Inspectors help you solve Quality Problems?
So choose the right supplier almost as important as choosing a business life partner. A wrong supplier will let you face alone in shipping delays, poor quality and products return, even serious market claims. So please take your time to think about what’s a good supplier?