Verifying a Chinese supplier or manufacturer
As we told you earlier, in the process of importing from China, the search for suppliers is crucial. The point was to find out as much as possible about the candidate companies before investing more money in contacting and visiting them. In any case, at this point, we should have in mind between one and three suppliers we want to get to know more closely. It is time to carry out an audit at each factory.
Why verify my supplier? There are four fundamental reasons:
- To know whether the company is really a manufacturer or just a middleman. This happens a lot when we look for suppliers through sites like Alibaba. Generic names such as "Shenzhen Electronic Appliances Co. Ltd." or "Guangzhou Food and Beverage Co. Ltd." should raise suspicion.
- To check the manufacturing processes and the state of the factory. This gives us an idea of our supplier's actual manufacturing capacity, as well as the approximate quality of the products.
- To meet the contact person. Our supplier is going to distrust us as much as we distrust them, so it is best to have a relationship beyond email exchanges. For this you can rely on an intermediary to do it for you, or travel to the factory yourself if your investment capacity allows it.
- To get an idea of the company's strategy. The supplier could be a state-owned company, a small company intending to internationalise, a manufacturer focused on the Chinese market, a supplier specialising in selling to foreign companies... These issues are very important in the medium term, so we must choose a supplier with interests that are compatible with ours when importing from China.
Once we have verified the supplier, we will be ready for the next step in our import process: price negotiation. See you in the next post!
Other entries from the Manual for importing from China:
– How much does it cost to import from China? (A practical example)
If you would like to import from China, please do not hesitate to contact us with no obligation.