Most importers who buy products in China resort to acceptance sampling -- in particular, QC inspections based on AQL limits. The main reason is, they can't trust their suppliers. Actually, they often don't even know where certain … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2014
Best Practices for Managing Chinese Suppliers [Upcoming Conference]
The European Chamber is organizing the second edition of the "Profitable Sourcing" series of conferences. The previous session, in February, was quite a success. It attracted close to 70 participants and was extremely interesting. I hope … [Read more...]
The 3 Types of Hong Kong Trading Companies
After working myself in a Hong Kong trading company a few years ago, and then observing my clients' suppliers, I have noticed a lot of similarities among these companies. I think we can distinguish between three types of trading … [Read more...]
The Different Sampling Plans Contained in the ISO 2859 Series
The vast majority of inspectors follow the ISO 2859-1 standard. But about ISO 2859-2, -3, and so on? The relationship between these parts is explained in ISO 2859-10:2006 (introduction to the ISO 2859 series of standards for sampling for … [Read more...]
List of the Best Articles Published on this Blog
When we redesigned this website a few months ago, we wanted it to be very simple. We even removed the "resource" pages. But the problem with a blog is, the best articles get buried in the mass. So we gathered them in several topics that … [Read more...]
Checking a Product’s Intellectual Property Rights Before Buying
A reader asked me how to conduct due diligence relative to the intellectual property rights of the products offered by Chinese suppliers: I am to sell accessories in a specific market. I have stumbled on many Alibaba listings … [Read more...]
Do Chinese Factories Really Migrate to Inland Provinces?
One of the very clear trends over the past 15 years in China has been the migration of exporting factories from the Pearl River Delta to the whole coast, and then (to a much lesser extent) to land-locked areas. However, my prediction is … [Read more...]
Maturity of Manufacturing Areas in China
I noticed that inexperienced importers tend to look at obvious signals (prices, response times, quality of English...) when communicating with potential suppliers. But they often overlook the location of the factory. The export … [Read more...]
Explanations of Compliance Requirements When Buying in China
Here are some interesting or useful articles that I found recently. Product Testing and Certification when Buying from China Fredrik Grönkvist wrote a very good guide for importers who are not familiar with their country's compliance … [Read more...]
What Products are Very Hard to Buy Outside China?
I have talked to importers who can only purchase their products in China, and other buyers who can't find anything they need in China. How is that possible?. Actually the situation is very different depending on the industry. I tried to … [Read more...]