In this article,we are going to show you the common mistakes that importers make when buying wholesale from China.
Mistakes when choosing products
Mistakes when selecting suppliers
Mistakes when buying from Alibaba
Mistakes when looking for and visiting suppliers in China
Mistakes before massive production for your product
Mistakes when communicating with Chinese suppliers
Mistakes in paying suppliers
Mistakes when shipping products from China
Common Mistakes when Choosing Products
1. Always going after the fad
With perfect timing, there’s no doubt that you can rack up millions from the latest product fads.
But The timing for exploiting product fads is critical. Being either a little too early or a little too late makes a huge difference. But identifying the perfect timing is difficult to do for most of you. Therefore, focusing on products that would sustain a long-term business would be the wiser choice.
2. Never take your eyes off of the low-value products
There are a few problems with the low-value products that we can see:
Fierce competition
Low value-added
Non-substantial profit caused by the shipping cost, though product price is low
Low-value-added potential, meaning any product enhancement will not increase its value. For example, the selling price of a cheap bottle opener will not significantly increase even if you put it in fancy packaging.
Besides, low-value products only seem cheap initially because the international shipping cost has not yet been taken into account. After doing a careful check, if there are already plenty of players in the field, consider stopping and giving a second thought to whether this business is suitable for you.
3. Thinking that highly consumed products equate to good products
When talking about a good product imported from China, market demand is one of the main factors to be considered.
Selling highly consumed products has had thousands of players sharing the cake. The profit is totally transparent. Moreover, they have been in this segment for a long time, they have already established their own stable sales channels for it. It is utterly a cut-throat competition.
Common Mistakes When Selecting Suppliers
4.Thinking that cooperating with a factory is the best solution
People who import from China prefer to buy direct from China factory. In their opinion, factories would offer more favorable prices than trading companies, thereby enabling them to gain better profits. We can’t say they are wrong, but it is also not right to limit yourself to factories while ignoring your business model and scale.
Especially when sourcing suppliers from Alibaba, it is not easy to identify which are real factories despite all the suppliers claiming to be one. But you don’t have to worry too much about differentiating between factories and trading companies. Instead, making a tradeoff between products, prices, and services are the key aspects that you should consider.
Personally, I believe that all the good suppliers similarly have the following characteristics:
The right balance between quality and price
The expertise of the supplier’s salesman
Efficiency of communication
Responsibility – Attitude towards problems and ways of solving them
Both trading companies and factories have their own advantages.
5. Only choosing the supplier with the cheapest quote
Cheaper prices make importers palpitate with excitement. There always exists the cheapest prices in the market. Not daring to tell you not to choose the cheapest options, but you should at least be aware that the cheapest prices sometimes mean more problems.
Many smaller importers have experienced such situations. Some suppliers will lure you in with cheaper prices. But once you remit the deposit, some suppliers will raise the prices using a variety of excuses. What will you do? Ask for the money back? Impossible.
You will lose a lot of time arguing with such suppliers and only end up feeling tired. If you insist on not paying the extra money, they will adjust the product quality according to the prices. In the end, you will spend more money and energy than necessary.
My suggestion is, don’t take any chances. Seldom will you get good quality products with the cheapest prices in the business? You should choose a reasonable price as plan B. Once you find something unusual, please shift to plan B immediately.
Common Mistakes When Buying from Alibaba
6. Trusting “Alibaba gold supplier” too much
Some tutorials, online guides, or some, so-called, experienced importers may teach you to choose a “gold supplier” when sourcing products in Alibaba.
In fact, most of the suppliers in Alibaba are gold suppliers. Surprised? “Gold supplier” refers only to a paid membership in Alibaba, which means that anyone can pay to get it. Therefore, “gold supplier” is never the standard of judging the quality of suppliers.
So you have to think about the suppliers from these aspects:
Study the samples from the supplier.
Never avoid any responsibilities once problems arise.
Timely communication.
7. Trusting trade assurance too much
Many importers simply regard Ali trade assurance as to the third party e-payment (like PayPal). They believe that they could simply ask for the money back if they are not satisfied with the imported goods.
But,It’s not that easy to get a refund from Alibaba suppliers. Trade assurance is not like PayPal which always protects the buyer’s interest. After all, we are talking about thousands of dollars or even more when placing an order on Alibaba.
Three powerful pieces of evidence are needed if you request refund due to quality issues:
Sales contract
Inspection report
Lab testing report
Sometimes, it’s very hard to define what the problem with quality is, so disputes usually happen between customers and suppliers for weeks and even months. This means that you have to spend both money and time during the whole process of requesting the refund, in which case, you may have missed the best time for selling and all your previous efforts on this order are wasted.
Trade assurance is not 100% safe when choosing suppliers. Buyers should highly consider the supplier’s professional experience, communication efficiency, attitude towards problems, product’s quality, and, of course, the price.
Common Mistakes When Looking for and Visiting Suppliers in China
8. Not sourcing your product at the right place in China
In China, there are many industrial clusters. You may be familiar with the industrial clusters in Guangdong province including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Zhongshan, etc.
The industrial clusters in the southeast of China include Zhejiang province – Yiwu, Zhuji, Ningbo; Jiangsu province – Kunshan, Wuxi; Fujian province – Fuzhou, Quanzhou, etc.
9. Knowing about the Canton Fair but having no idea if the Canton Fair is suitable for you.
When talking about taking part in the exhibition in China, many foreigners will think of the Canton Fair, the largest exhibition (includes a wide variety of products) in China. But the suppliers there will have a higher demand for MOQ or have low MOQ but with an uncompetitive unit price. Moreover, many of the suppliers in the Canton Fair are big trading companies.
If you’re cultivating 1 to 2 products in a niche, Canton Fair is perfect for you. But, if you have lots of different items needed to be purchased (low MOQ), the Canton Fair may not be suitable for you.
Common mistakes before massive production for your product
10. You believe the mass goods will be better than your sample
The sample provided by the supplier is not the one you want. But the supplier promises you that when the mass-produced product comes out, it would definitely be the one you want. “It’s just a small problem with the sample” is the common excuse. Sadly, many experienced importers will still believe in such unreliable words.
You should pay attention if you are in such a situation. A supplier like that is irresponsible: how can a reliable supplier make such a bad sample?
Below are two solutions for your reference:
A. when there is a problem with the sample you should ask the supplier for another sample until you get exactly what you want. If this supplier refuses your request and would just tell you that they will produce it perfectly during mass production, you better change to a new supplier. Keep in mind: a reliable supplier will work well with you from the beginning to the end.
B. you need a QC or a third party inspection agency in China. They can help you in inspecting the goods during production. If the goods don’t match your quality standards, you can ask them to refuse to pay the balance payment unless re-work on the products is done. In this case, the risk of receiving unqualified goods can be greatly reduced.
Common Mistakes when Communicating with Chinese Wholesale Suppliers
11. Relying only on email for communication and having no other instant messaging tools
A delayed response from your Chinese supplier always gives you a headache, especially when there are urgent issues.
It’s generally important to use email for business transactions with Europeans and Americans. The email is more formal and makes it easy to keep evidence in the event of a dispute. But when it comes to more urgent matters, a number of instant messaging tools will be very useful including WeChat, Whatsapp and so on.
12. Your best time is not their best time
Many importers may think that Chinese suppliers have 24-hour customer service. But they are wrong. Many Chinese salesmen will not check emails after work. Therefore, it’s better to be aware of the time difference between China and your country.
I want you to know that many suppliers usually work in high efficiency from 10 am to 4 pm. Even though they can still receive updates from you outside this time period, many of them will wait until the next day to reply. In other words, it would be best to contact them within this time period if you have something urgent.
Common Mistakes in Paying Suppliers
13. Many importers DO NOT check the holiday schedule in China during payment processing.
As the delivery term usually states: production could be arranged after the deposit is received and product details are confirmed.
We want to remind you that you should avoid paying on Chinese holiday. In such situations, the time for the Chinese supplier to receive the payment will be extended by 1-3 days. Therefore, when Chinese holidays are approaching, it’s necessary to make sure that the transfer gets to your Chinese supplier before the festival in order to avoid production delay due to payments not received.
Common Mistakes When Shipping Products from China
14. Always choosing sea shipment and thinking that it’s the cheapest even for very small volume shipments
To save on expenses in the import business, sea shipping has always been considered as the cheapest way of shipment. However, this is not the case.
Sea carriers charge per container rates for shipping in standard containers (20’ and 40’ being the most common sizes). While weight can factor into the price from sea carriers, the charge they make tends to be based more on the size of a shipment.
If you are shipping less than a container load, your price is often determined by cubic meter. With larger and heavier shipments, it is often much cheaper to ship by sea. As a shipment gets smaller, the margin between the prices gets smaller and sometimes, air shipment will even end up being less expensive.
15. Don’t take a risk for low cargo value declaration
It’s understandable that many importers want to declare a lower value for their goods to avoid customs duties. But don’t declare it too low. If your total declared value is deemed artificially low, the cargo is flagged, goods will be detained directly or the importer may be asked to provide additional evidence of the transaction value.
Undervaluing the declared value amounts to tax fraud and is a criminal offense, especially for European and American importers. You should pay attention to the fact that there is no chance of being lucky. Even if the event of getting checked by customs is just a probability, once it happens, it will bring you a lot of losses.
