Mistakes that Must Avoid Before You Buying Wholesale Kitchen Storage from China

China is a big manufacturing country for wholesale kitchen storage. Every year, a large number of foreign importers buy various products from China in large quantities. During the procurement process, various problems will inevitably arise, partly due to unexpected situations, and partly due to a lack of understanding and mastery of the Chinese market. In this blog, we will use kitchen storage products as an example to detail 6 mistakes you must avoid when buying wholesale kitchen storage in China.

1. Mistakes when Buying Wholesale Kitchen Storage

（1）Always follow trends
Sometimes, valuable opportunities arise in the market: hot new products bring huge profits to merchants. For example, from 2016 to 2017, the popular fidget spinner helped a lot of customers make big money. But often most of the popular products will quickly lose their original luster and lose the market.
Plus, if your product is seasonal, that means you need to catch the right time and make quick sales in the right season. Otherwise, when the season passes, you may have to significantly lower prices to keep selling the remaining product and avoid long-term storage fees. In fact, they may not all be sold in time.
So, in order to grow a long-term business, catching up with trends is not advocated. Timing of product fads is critical, but for most people, it’s hard to pinpoint the perfect timing. Therefore, it would be a wiser choice to focus on products that will sustain your long-term business. In the field of kitchen storage, there will always be new and unique products, but they often do not last long. The products with the longest lifespan on the market will still be those classic product styles.

（2）Always choose large size products
You must know that when buying wholesale kitchen storage products from China, in addition to the cost of the product itself, you also need to bear the high shipping costs from distant foreign countries to China. Especially for kitchen storage products, many of them are large but low-quality types, and their shipping costs may be more expensive. Therefore, you must take shipping costs into account when buying wholesale kitchen storage. In addition, the possibility of product damage must also be considered. Plus, if you’re going to sell these products on Amazon, you’ll have to incur additional costs for storage and handling.

2. Mistakes when Selecting Suppliers

（1）Think working with factories is the best solution
When people buying wholesale kitchen storage from China, they sometimes tend to skip traders and buy directly from Chinese factories. In their opinion, because the products are directly produced by the factory, they will offer better prices than trading companies and thus can obtain better profits. This kind of thinking is certainly valid, but we should not limit ourselves to this kind of thinking.
Especially when you choose suppliers on Alibaba, basically most of the suppliers will claim to be producers, so it is often difficult to tell which are the real factories. But you shouldn’t let this thinking limit and trap you. Instead, you should compare each provider’s products, prices, and services to make the best choice for you.
Excellent Chinese suppliers often have the following characteristics:
The balance between quality and price
Professional knowledge of the salesman
communication efficiency
Responsibility – Attitude to Problems and Problem Solving

（2）Only choose the supplier with the cheapest quote
Cheaper price totals will excite importers because cheaper means more profit and possibility. For the same product, there are always the cheapest and cheaper prices on the market, which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t choose them. But you should realize that the cheapest price can sometimes mean more problems.
When you buying wholesale kitchen storage, maybe you’ve been in a situation where some suppliers will lure you with very cheap prices. But once you pay the deposit, they will jack up the price with all kinds of excuses. This is one of the strategies. Understandable, but you’ll waste a lot of time arguing with such vendors and just end up feeling tired. If you insist on not paying extra, they will adjust the quality of the product based on the price. In the end, you will spend unnecessary money and effort and possibly lose your reputation. Take buying kitchen storage products as an example, products with the same appearance and different materials will present very different qualities.
Our advice is to never take risks. You will rarely get a quality product at the cheapest price. You should choose a reasonable price as Plan B so that you can switch to it as soon as you notice something unusual.

3. Mistakes When Looking for and Visiting Suppliers in China

Many importers don’t do any research before visiting China
It’s hard to get a complete picture of a country, but it’s possible to get the information you need with a targeted survey. Maybe the product you want is completely different from the area you will be visiting. In such a case, you may pay unnecessary costs and losses. Although in the current epidemic environment, it has become difficult to personally visit a supplier or a certain area in China, if you increase your knowledge of China, you can also learn more about the origin of many products, and you can follow the clues to find suppliers who can offer low-cost, high-quality products. For example, when buying wholesale kitchen storage, it will be much helpful if you can figure out which place is specialized in producing these products.

4. Mistakes when Communicating with Chinese Wholesale Suppliers

（1）Only communicate via email, no other instant messengers
The use of email is often important at work, and for anything important, like product requirements, it’s best to send it via email, it’s more formal, and evidence is preserved in case there’s a dispute.
However, due to various reasons such as time differences, sometimes Chinese suppliers cannot respond to your emails immediately. Especially when there are urgent questions, delays in replying always cause a lot of trouble.
At times like these, using some instant messenger can be very useful. First of all, WhatsApp is arguably one of the most popular tools in the world. Chinese suppliers also use it.
Additionally, you can use WeChat when communicating with Chinese suppliers. It is the most common daily communication tool in China. If you send a message via WeChat, you are more likely to get an immediate response than an email.
In addition, when your order has entered the second half, when following up on the order and production status, viewing samples, or your email is not clear enough, WeChat’s video and voice functions can more directly and clearly show you the status of the goods. Actual status and current production status and help you communicate your message clearly.
Unlike other countries, Skype is certainly not the most popular local communication tool in China. In fact, not every provider uses Skype.

（2）Your best time may not be your supplier’s best time

Many importers may think that Chinese suppliers have 24-hour customer service. But not so. Many Chinese suppliers don’t check their emails after hours. Therefore, it is best to know the time difference between China and your country. It’s worth noting that many suppliers are typically in a productive phase from 10 am to 5 pm. Even if they can still hear from you outside of this time, many of them will wait until the next day to reply. In other words, if you have an urgent matter, it is best to contact them in the meantime.

5. Mistakes When Buying from Alibaba

Too much trust in “Alibaba certified suppliers”.
Some tutorials, online guides, or so-called experienced importers may tell you to choose a “verified supplier” when sourcing products on Alibaba. This might induce you to think “proven” equals “excellent” and trust that the vendor will be great. In fact, Verified Supplier is Alibaba’s paid program. After paying a fee and passing an independent third-party inspection such as SGS, any supplier can be verified, even a small trading company with just a few people. Therefore, becoming a certified supplier is not as difficult as you might think, nor does it mean that they are 100% reliable. When buying wholesale kitchen storage from Alibaba, you can compare the price and service based on the same material, size, etc.
You still have to consider suppliers from these aspects:
Research samples from suppliers.
If something goes wrong, don’t shirk any responsibility.
The efficiency of communication and feedback.

6. Mistakes about Prices and MOQs

Chinese manufacturers tend to have razor-thin margins and are therefore strict with minimum order quantities. They may only be willing to lower the MOQ if you can commit to a larger order on your initial purchase. If you are already satisfied with the product and price of the supplier you are working with for the first time, but still want a lower price, the negotiation may be extremely difficult and you are likely to end in failure.
Price matches the quality, and setting a reasonable target price is critical. A supplier is a business and also needs to be profitable. Bargaining can damage a relationship, or it can negatively impact the quality or overall service.

To avoid this problem, you should ask multiple suppliers for quotes to know the actual manufacturer price of the product; check the raw material purchase price index, this information is helpful when the supplier changes the price later, this is the raw material Common symptoms of fluctuating costs. In addition, the cost of certification required for policy, tooling, and other aspects will also affect the price.

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