|
Nowadays, many of the customers start to buy the lighting fixtures in China, even Philips and Osram have OEM partners in China. Buying in China successfully means a lot of profits and risk. Although many of the customers win great profit, but it’s not 1,2,3, you can book success.
Here are ten tips for the international buyers to source and work with the good supplier,
1. Don’t get scared when you start to buy the LED lighting fixtures in China, not every China factory are cheating company, few of them are pure cheating company. Many of the copperation failed just because of the cultural difference and mis-communications.
2. Try to build your supply chain in a place where most of the LED lighting fixture factories locate. In this situation, it’s easy for you to find a good trading agent to follow your order . Also if there is any problem happened, you can go to the factory to solve the problem while you can meet qualified suppliers at the same time. In China, traditionally, there is two manufacturing circle, Shanghai, Shenzhen-Guangzhou. So try to find a supplier in Shanghai or shenzhen-Guangzhou. Be cautious at finding suppliers in the middle and west of china, it’s too risky because many of the suppliers there lack experience to work as the international speed and standard.
3. Do not only find suppliers on the HK fair or ALIBABA, and other fairs, try to find local brand which don’t have the capacity to build international brands while they have good products. Most of the local brand have good experience in the international market, thus they have the money to build a brand in China. And you can also focused on the local professional magazines.
4. If you have large amount of the purchasing, try to find a local professional trading agent to communicate with the suppliers, most of the customers get cheated just because they are foreign people, for local people, it’s more easy to solve such problems. The more important thing is the international buyers need technical supports as LED is a pre-mature technology. There are so many new areas and unknown problems. China factory may not understand this more than you. If you have strong support, then both sides can understand where risks are and be prepared!
5. Work with a good salesman, don’t only look at the company’s scale and products. China’s economics is growing very quickly, so for the excellent international sales person, they never need to worry about the good working platform. If the company’s boss is not a professional businessman, it’s very difficult for them to attract excellent international salesman. If you work with a good salesman who can speak excellent English and have good business ethics, you will save a lot of time and money.
6. Be cautious at the idea of finding a Chinese girlfriend when you do business, most of the international customers are professional serious businessman. But a few of them “accidentally” get a Chinese girlfriend when they work with their suppliers. I had heard too many stories of the international businessman being cheated very badly. Be careful, once you got cheated by your honey in China, it can never be a small loss.
7. Try to build suppliers database, it doesn’t mean that you need inquire them one by one, but to watch over the new trend of the market. Many manufacturers in China don’t know how to create new products, but many of them are good at copying. They copy the most hot-selling products very fast, so if you have a large database of the suppliers, you can always check their website to get the trend of the industry.
8. Have more understandings of the China culture, you will find out the source of you being cheated, and the source of being copied, the source of postponement of the goods. Thus you will have your own methods of avoiding a lot of risks. Hereby, I would like recommend a famous book, “Red Star over China”. If you would like, I can explain the history and business culture of China when you come to Shenzhen.
9. Don’t treat the paper warranty seriously unless you are working with a professional manufacturer and a professional businessman, too much bosses in China treat the contract as a piece of paper. Some even can’t fulfill the payment of the commission for their salesman, how could they fulfill your warranty promise while you are ten thousand miles away.
10. Try to source the unique products to build your product line, some times it’s necessary to pay the fee to change the shell of the LED lighting fixtures. As many international buyers find that it is very embarrassing that the products they sell is everywhere in their country, even their suppliers start to build office in their country. Most of the China factory don’t have their brands, so they lack the experience of avoiding such market conflicts. |