Making choices is usually more important than hard work. If the supplier you choose is unprofessional or even very rubbish, no matter how hard you try, you still cannot open up the market, and even have to face great risks. Due to the long-distance and high cost, many foreign companies cannot frequently visit China for on-site inspections and face-to-face exchanges. In most cases, we communicate with each other via email or phone. So how should we identify suppliers under these limited conditions?
Let’s start with what a good supplier must have: Logicality
We believe that a supplier with strong logic must be a good supplier. The reason is simple because international trade is a fast-paced and strict industry. From product development, cost analysis, fixed pricing to mass production, product packaging, shipment arrangements, document issuance, etc., all steps require suppliers and strong logic. Once one step is wrong, it will cause the next step to stop and cause irreparable losses. In addition, logical suppliers usually have a strong sense of responsibility.
So, how do we judge whether the supplier is logical? In fact, it is not difficult. As a buyer, there may be many questions when contacting new suppliers or purchasing new products. If the supplier can answer all your questions one by one in a short time, and give his own suggestions, and even some details that you may not have considered, for the time being, I think you should give priority to this company. On the contrary, if the supplier cannot answer all the questions, or even in most cases cannot give irrelevant answers by asking the target price or purchase quantity, I really recommend that you stay away from these suppliers. Maybe their products look good or their prices are competitive, but they are always a hidden danger in the future.
Another element to judge the professionalism of a supplier: proactivity
For example, a customer sends a picture of a glass bottle and asks for an offer. There is only one picture and no information. The majority of suppliers will ask to provide product capacity, quantity, packaging, materials, and other related information, otherwise, it will not be able to quote. But, professional suppliers will recommend the best-selling models according to the market of the customer’s country. Because they understand that, in many cases, their customer only get this information from the terminal customers.
No packaging information? It doesn’t matter. We offer several kinds, like a white box, color box, PDQ, and so on, for the customer to choose from.
Don’t know the materials. No problem. We know all the raw materials suitable for making this kind of product. And we will quote for each material one by one.
So, what is proactivity? Do not ask customers meaningless questions, like what’s your target price? can you please let me know the QTY and so on, which will only waste their time. Instead, do give the solutions according to the customers’ request and let them make their choices.
Logical and proactive, with these 2 elements of the supplier, I think we can call it a professional supplier. And Chinese suppliers are mainly divided into 2 types, trading companies, and factories. So, is the price of a factory really cheaper than the trading company? For this reason, I have written another article specifically, attached the link below:
