How to Find Quality Suppliers in China?
A company's ability to grow depends in part on its ability to implement a long-term sourcing strategy that can increase profits and, by finding quality suppliers, minimise aggravation and loss.
In China, there are many suppliers in every industry and finding strong, reputable source suppliers is a problem that every buyer must face.
Common ways to find quality suppliers include:
Trade shows: One of the best places to find quality suppliers is at trade shows. You have the opportunity to see the products in person, talk to the companies, get to know the suppliers in depth and get first-hand information. However, different industries are different and some industries or factories may be less likely to exhibit for a variety of reasons.
Network Search: Through the network products, access to relevant product information, supplier information, is currently the most popular practice. It is possible to have an intuitive concept of a supplier through the supplier's website, electronic brochures. However, more and more small workshops and trading companies are getting involved in online promotion. They earn a price difference by making up stories and presenting themselves as quality suppliers. This behaviour is often difficult to detect and represents a major potential threat to procurement security.
Peer recommendation: Asking for recommendations from friends in the industry or relevant professionals is relatively reliable, but not very common. It is also difficult to obtain more accurate information in today's diversified sourcing environment, especially when sourcing from as far away as China.
Tendering: Suppliers are invited to participate through a tender notice and the company selects them through a statutory process to select the right supplier. However, this tends to apply to large companies and large projects and is often impractical for the vast number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Third party organisations: Generally speaking, there are many procurement teams with professional nature and data information sharing parties in the market, and supplier resources can be obtained through such platforms. Finding a trustworthy quality assessment organisation that you can work with on a long-term basis can significantly reduce procurement risks and lower procurement costs.
So how do we find quality suppliers? I summarise three points:
1. Background investigation
By investigating the supplier's historical information, background investigation of the supplier's size, registration information, etc., especially to investigate whether it is involved in legal proceedings, labour disputes, etc. Through background investigation, you can screen out suppliers with poor track records, trading companies, too small companies, etc. at the source to reduce procurement risk and save a lot of human and material resources.
2. On-site visits
In general, the only reliable way to verify a supplier's actual production capabilities is to visit the supplier in person or through a third party representative, and good quality suppliers will often allow this to be verified in this way.
We can find out information about the supplier by checking the following aspects:
- Inventory of raw materials and finished goods
- Incoming material quality control, process quality control and pre-shipment quality control procedures
- R&D capabilities (important if the company plans to develop new products)
- Maintenance and calibration of machinery and equipment
- Certifications or licences (e.g. business licence, quality system certificate), etc.
3. Operation Survey
During the site visit, the supplier's order status and inventory can be examined from the side to ensure that the supplier is in a healthy financial condition. Supplier's financial status is an important measure of the supplier's ability to provide long-term stable supply standard, will directly affect its delivery and performance of the effect, if the supplier's financial problems, poor sales led to the closure of bankruptcy, will result in production stoppage, affecting the final transaction of a serious crisis.
If you have any plan to source industrial products from China, please feel free to contact LQS, which will provide you with quality one-stop service for the whole process of your sourcing business in China.
Liberty Quality Service (LQS) is a company specializing in quality inspection, product acceptance, factory verification, loading supervision and other services, covering the Greater China region.Welcome to follow our homepage for the latest updates.
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