When we are looking for new promotional items suppliers, they will often tell you about the strength of their company. For example, with which well-known customers have long-term cooperation, many experienced employees in the promotional products industry, the annual export amount of tens of millions of dollars, and so on.
Some companies indeed meet these conditions, but most of China’s export companies of promotional products are still dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises. I can understand that they may boast about the strength of their company in front of potential customers to get a good impression and win orders.
So, how to identify whether the new supplier is a big company? Are they as powerful as they say? In addition to time-consuming and costly field visits, we have the following three tips to understand the strength of new suppliers:
#1. Provide better payment terms
I’ll put the payment method first, for both big and small businesses, cash flow is the king. I would like to give a very common example. A supplier requires full payment of an order before the delivery date. It is assumed that the shipping time is one month, the customs clearance plus the goods delivered to the designated warehouse time is one week, and the sales time for finishing all goods is two months. Obviously, even though everything goes well, then you will need at least 3 months to return on investment. If you don’t get investment from elsewhere or get a loan from the bank, there is no doubt that your business growth will certainly be affected by this payment method.
And a strong supplier, its own cash flow is very abundant, who could provide financial support for you. For example, we purchased products for an import company in the US, and the purchase amount of the importer in the first year reached $600000. After about 8 months of successful cooperation, we established full trust between each other and changed the original payment method. Now, they don’t need any deposit to place an order. They just have to pay all the payments before the container arrives at the port of LA.
Of course, I am not asking you to put forward such payment terms when you cooperate with new suppliers for the first time, because there is not enough trust between the two parties. According to my experience, if you order the same product more than three times, or the cooperation time is about one year, you can try to make such a request. At this time, powerful companies are willing to provide you with such payment methods for the purpose of win-win.
#2. Develop new products based on your own ideas
In the increasing market competition, many people want to attract consumers with novel product appearance and function. We all know that designing a product is relatively easy, you just need to express your ideas through pictures and messages. However, it needs a lot of experience and time to select materials, develop molds, and even package design. If you hand over the development of a creative product to a small start-up company, they may eventually be able to complete the final product according to your requirements. But it can take a lot of time and communication costs. Because the development of new products is essentially a company’s ability to integrate supply chain resources.
If you find a supplier with more than a decade or more of industry experience, they will find the key points quickly. For example, for mold development and manufacturing, which city in China will have industrial advantages? If the main material of new products is plastic, where is the industrial concentration zone? This key information is stored in the company’s data repository. Without years of industry experience, some small companies will spend a lot of time collecting information, thus reducing the progress of the whole project. For you, as time goes on, you may eventually miss this opportunity.
#3. Professional quality of sales staff
We all believe that whether the sales personnel are professional or not determines the ability of a company, which also reflects the strength of the company from the side. In fact, many companies claim to have salespeople who have worked in the promotional products industry for many years. So, how can we identify whether the salesperson we are in contact with is professional?
First of all, I think a salesperson must have good English skills. For some complex products, the person who can clearly, methodically introduce to customers, and at any time can communicate with customers through telephone. At the same time, he should be very clear about the price differences between different materials, advantages, and disadvantages, as well as the relevant certificates required for import and export.
Second, when the customer has questions or concerns, the salesperson should have a variety of alternative options for customers to choose from, instead of just answering yes or no. I still remember a top salesperson who said to me that there should be many kinds of schemes for customers to do multiple choice. If you can do this, you can be qualified to be a salesman, not a customer service.
Finally, I think the professional salesperson should have patience. We have all met the salesman who asks if the order is confirmed or not after receiving the quotation? From my point of view, I don’t like this way of pushing. Customers need valuable information, not meaningless urging. I prefer the salesperson who provides me with some information that will inspire me in the follow-ups. For example, our engineers have found that if we replace it with new material, not only will the quality not be reduced, but most importantly, we can save at least 10% of the cost. Or, after studying google trends, we find that if we add a new feature to the product, it will be more in line with the consumption habits of the market. Unprofessional companies often do not give enough training to the salesmen in customer follow-up. Frequent urging will not only make customers have a bad purchasing experience but also reduce the company’s reputation.
In addition, I have attached another article of mine as follows, which may be of more intuitive help to you on how to choose a professional promotional products supplier:
Thank you for reading this article. Which of the points mentioned in this article resonates with you most? Or, what else do you want to know about China’s promotional products export industry? Please leave me a message and I’ll share some of your concerns, whether it’s products, suppliers, trends, etc.
