Sourcing is the very first step in the whole supply chain but it turned out to be the key to success for most business. There are many well-established platforms when it comes to sourcing products or suppliers in China. Alibaba is the one of the few among them where you can find suppliers given certain key words.
However, it is not an easy thing to verify their credentials due to serious issues in scams and frauds. This is because among some of these websites there is no such a rigorous verification process for a supplier’s profile.
In general, Alibaba is a good place to look at at first for general information. You’d be extra careful to place an order from a supplier in Alibaba without knowing them in the first place. The ideal situation will always be to do business with the suppliers with verified credentials.
A good alternative might be seeking a professional sourcing service from a China sourcing agent who understands your industry and the market. Please be reminded there's much more to international trade than just making sales and therefore a qualified agent offers much more than a middle man what you would typically think of in other business case.
Finance, logistics, regulation and tax of international trade is far more complex (multi-bank, transnational letters of credit,multi-modal transport, export and import declarations, documents, certificates, and duty, transnational sales tax, etc. for instance). All of this requires specialized knowledge that many manufacturers fails to provide.
Further, very often some production can takes up to a few months to accomplish and the manufacturing process can also be very complicated. Each part of the production line needs to be placed under scrutiny to ensure the quality. Without an appropriate quality control personnel to monitor and follow up the order on a regular basis in China, it is very likely the factory produces the wrong product or it turns out that the quality is terrible. Many times for face or a myriad of other reasons, the factory won’t tell you the real situation.There is very little thing you can do because normally when you find out from the other part of the world the timing to fix the problem might be gone. And that’s just if the factory is manufacturing a standard product. If they are manufacturing a customized product, then things are getting much, much more complex.
Without a trustworthy agent as your reliable partner in China, you are going to bear the consequences of all these things above at your own risk. That’s why most famous international companies like to work with an agency instead of directly with factories. With a very fair amount of service fee, it can truly saves most of the buyers from such a hassle and risk to screw up the whole project.
Our company China Sourcelink is your first-choice China sourcing agent based both in Los Angeles and Shenzhen China positioning to US customers to source reliable suppliers or products or to outsource their R&D work to China. If you have any question regarding sourcing or outsourcing in China in general, feel free to contact us for free consultations.
