what are you buying? I source lighting equipment and microphones mainly, plus a few guitars (these through aliexpress), and I've had no issues at all. My rule with new suppliers is a first order limit - £500 on small items and £750 on more expensive items. Get the quotes, look at the specs, and then decide to give it a shot. So far, over about five years it's been rewarding.
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A good friend is in the sweetie business, big time, and doing very well. She's very wary of imported confectionary due to the numerous regulations on additives and ingredients, and simply can't determine the quality of the actual product delivered, which she can do from European suppliers.
She's a canny businesswoman, and if she could import confectionary, she would. No doubt there are good suppliers over there, but how can you tell. Maybe there is a service agent over there who could help - but I don;t know if they exist for foodstuffs?
She's a canny businesswoman, and if she could import confectionary, she would. No doubt there are good suppliers over there, but how can you tell. Maybe there is a service agent over there who could help - but I don;t know if they exist for foodstuffs?
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Most suppliers on Alibaba are legitimate (You only generally hear about the horror stories). That's not to say they are all any good. When dealing with a supplier for the first time on the smaller end of the scale which you describe it's really a case of taking a punt so don't initially risk more than you can afford to lose.
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Did someone request a service agent?
If the volumes are small, its not worth importing.
If the volumes are large, you will make decent profits.
Alibaba is full of middleman, and one man bands, which is fine for small quantities.
Like anything in business, due diligence on your potential suppliers, especially from China is a must.
There are many scam artists in China that are very clever as to what they tell you and information they provide. It's not only Alibaba, but given that it is the largest B2B platform, it's likely to have more than most.
Follow the rules and you should be OK, but be prepared to spend time, effort and expect mind blowing English phrases as well as yes, yes yes we can do that to most of your questions (They can't).
Remember, many of the people you will speak to on Alibaba know little English, many resort to google translation tools to answer your questions, be prepared for some mistakes on the way.
You need patience.
You will learn from every purchase.
Good luck!
If the volumes are small, its not worth importing.
If the volumes are large, you will make decent profits.
Alibaba is full of middleman, and one man bands, which is fine for small quantities.
Like anything in business, due diligence on your potential suppliers, especially from China is a must.
There are many scam artists in China that are very clever as to what they tell you and information they provide. It's not only Alibaba, but given that it is the largest B2B platform, it's likely to have more than most.
Follow the rules and you should be OK, but be prepared to spend time, effort and expect mind blowing English phrases as well as yes, yes yes we can do that to most of your questions (They can't).
Remember, many of the people you will speak to on Alibaba know little English, many resort to google translation tools to answer your questions, be prepared for some mistakes on the way.
You need patience.
You will learn from every purchase.
Good luck!
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The thing that annoys me about Chinese/alibaba suppliers is how cut throat they are. My friend has a industrual tablet computer business. He's being doing touch screen pcs long before the apple iPad. For a period he made an absolute killing. He sold to various trades.
He sourced from China and resold the tablets under his brand name. But the basic computer and shell of the computer was designed and manufactured by the Chinese factory.
He created a brand name and made it his is. Then a few weeks later his chinese dealer started marketing the product on alibaba under the brand name that my friend created. So you have the Chinese warehouse undercutting the distributor and to top it all violating the distributor's trademark too. If his clients were to search the brand name and trawl through the internet search long enough they'd see the alibaba page selling the product.
I just seen this tonight. I'm building a CNC router, there's a popular DIY cnc router building site where you can go and order parts and learn to build your own. All the constitutient parts were sourced from China. Now there are hoards of chinese sellers on aliexpress selling those parts and tagging the title of the ad using the trademark name that this company came up with.
The thing is, these resellers would have absolutely no business from listing these ads on aliexpress had it not been for the hard work of the company that built the brand and marketed that brand all over the net. Now some middleman in CHina gets to undercut them.
He sourced from China and resold the tablets under his brand name. But the basic computer and shell of the computer was designed and manufactured by the Chinese factory.
He created a brand name and made it his is. Then a few weeks later his chinese dealer started marketing the product on alibaba under the brand name that my friend created. So you have the Chinese warehouse undercutting the distributor and to top it all violating the distributor's trademark too. If his clients were to search the brand name and trawl through the internet search long enough they'd see the alibaba page selling the product.
I just seen this tonight. I'm building a CNC router, there's a popular DIY cnc router building site where you can go and order parts and learn to build your own. All the constitutient parts were sourced from China. Now there are hoards of chinese sellers on aliexpress selling those parts and tagging the title of the ad using the trademark name that this company came up with.
The thing is, these resellers would have absolutely no business from listing these ads on aliexpress had it not been for the hard work of the company that built the brand and marketed that brand all over the net. Now some middleman in CHina gets to undercut them.
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Definitely so. What is more fun is that there are plenty of those who doesn't even know how to use Goggle translate properly.)
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Obviously you are offering a competing service to alibaba so you would say that. Chances are all your chinese suppliers that you have in YOUR directory are 99.9% on alibaba too.
There are a small minority of scammers everywhere it's up to importer to do their due diligence
All these trade show suppliers are also on alibaba too.
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F
FreebieBoy34
Alibaba is a trustworthy site. In fact, I trust it more compared to eBay as all of the people/suppliers I have dealt with there have always been honest in our transactions... Of course, you may hear some bad things about them, but this is what I can say based on my own experience...
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