Elksourcing

If properly managed, sourcing from China can bring good profits, however, it’s crucial to work with good suppliers, or the whole business could be a disaster. This is a tricky process. In this article, we will advise you how to identify and communicate with potential suppliers. 1. Drawing your ideal supplier profile Ask yourself a few questions: Do you need a supplier with strong engineering capabilities (to develop new products)? Do you need them to have a wide range of designs that you can choose from? Do you want them to focus on low cost? Or on high quality? How big should they be? This is a very important criterion. If your orders are not big enough (over 20K pcs per order), you might need to work with a sourcing company that will place your orders in a medium sized factory and follow production closely. 2. Go to online B2B directories and/or trade…

As China becomes more and more as “manufacturing hub of the world”, its manufacturing costs are low in comparison to other places in the world. This has attracted a large number of business people get into the Chinese markets as they opt to import goods and reduce their productions costs, hence gain a competitive advantage over other businesses. Another advantage has been obtaining high quality products especially for businesses dealing with suppliers who are keen on quality control. While this can be a highly profitable, it may not always be rosy as your business may face a number of challenges and risks that may inversely affect your Return on Investment. As a business owner while importing goods from China, you may run into a risk of receiving poor quality goods with limited options of sending them back to the seller or improving them locally. This results in financial losses due to…

Below are some of the common mistakes many exporters make, as well as ways in which you should avoid them. 1. Expanding to too large of a geographic area Every country has its unique personality, and those personalities are comprised from millions of people in that country. However, every country is comprised of smaller communities, whether they’re states, provinces, villages, towns, and neighborhoods. Each of these subsets represent a microcosm of the whole. Failure to understand that each region of a country has its own tastes and needs is a surefire way to exporting failure. 2. Selecting the Wrong Overseas Partners and Distributors Just as you need to be careful not to grow too quickly and too “generically” when first starting out your export business, it is critical to your future and continued success that you find overseas partners and distributors that align with your company’s goals and values. This is…

The best defense against quality defects is prevention. And the most crucial time to prevent product defects is when beginning your sourcing journey, as you filter potential suppliers. Let’s look at the various steps you can take at the start of your relationship with a new supplier to limit your chances of finding unacceptable quality defects later. 1. How to prevent product defects when negotiating with suppliers? Nearly every importer has had to deal with product defects in their shipments at one time or another. Defects are an inescapable reality of manufacturing—no factory is perfect of the time. But that doesn’t mean you should resign yourself to poor quality products from your suppliers. Preventing a quality defect when first beginning the supplier relationship is almost always far easier and cheaper than trying to correct it after it appears. When it comes to factories’ production capabilities in Asia, not all factories are…

When you’re manufacturing in China, it’s easy to turn your attention away from suppliers and settle into complacency. But the eventual consequence is often product returns, due to what’s called quality fade. From critical issues to small and innocuous ones, quality fade can lead to problems in any importer’s supply chain. What is “quality fade”? Quality fade is a gradual decline in product quality over time. In most cases, for any given product, customers aren’t likely to notice a small decline in quality from one shipment to the next. But when comparing units over a longer stretch of time, like from one year to the next, the drop in quality is more obvious. Many experienced importers have their own horror stories about frustrating instances of quality fade. Maybe you’re a long-time dress shoe importer who starts receiving more and more reports of your shoes creasing or showing other signs of wear…

As an importer, quality issues with your product can be the downfall of your business, even if you have a great product idea, a competitive marketing strategy and an enthusiastic customer base. They can lead to product returns, product recalls, bad product reviews and a damaged reputation for your brand. Any of these issues can lead customers to look to your competitors for a similar product instead of buying from you. 1. Omitting quality expectations from supplier negotiations Would you wait until Christmas Eve to tell your friend you expect them to cook the main course for a Christmas dinner for 10 people? Probably not. So why should you wait to tell your factory about your quality standards until production is already underway for an order of hundreds or even thousands of units? The most successful importers outline their quality standards in the negotiation phase when they’re choosing suppliers. This…

In this article, let’s explore the potential reasons why your product might not reach your customers in the right condition and how packaging inspection can help you avoid them. 1. Packaging materials are crushed during shipping and handling Like most importers of consumer products, you may choose to pack your products in cardboard shipping cartons before they leave the factory. Cardboard shipping cartons are light, inexpensive and can provide great protection from a number of outside elements. They’re also highly stackable for transport. But they’re not invincible. If your customers report that your inventory arrived in crushed shipping cartons, you might want to look into the following causes. 1). Stacking too many heavy cartons leads to crushing. 2). Improper packing assortment leaves your products vulnerable. 3). Inadequate packaging materials don’t protect your product. What packaging quality control measures help prevent crushing during shipping and handling? 1). Clarify packaging materials and assortment in…

The first issue you want to look at is the China sourcing agent’s location. The closer the people who manage your project to you, the easier the communication will be. When both of you work in the same time zone it is easier to find a time during the day to speak and a face to face meetings are easier to arrange. On the other hand, an agent that is close to you is far from the factories, and all the advantages I just spoke about become the disadvantages of the communication between the agent and the Chinese suppliers. In addition, if the people that run the sourcing agency are close to you, but in terms of experience and culture background are far from the Chinese suppliers, then that together with the physical distance will create a communication barrier. Some of the important advantages of a China-based agency management is that they have…