Most inspections take place just before shipment. What type of issue does this create? And how can an unscrupulous supplier take advantage of it to avoid inspections?

Chinese suppliers know when a shipment is urgent–the buyer is usually pretty clear about it. They also know that some importers value on-time deliveries over virtually everything else. Why? Because the final customers, often retailers in the export country, always notice late shipments… But who knows when quality is unacceptable, and who knows if the retailers will complain about it?

Buyers often face the following trade-off: either they insist to check the goods before shipment (which might create delays), or they let the supplier ship the goods out as soon as they are ready. Here is the usual scenario of a supplier that wants to push the importer into that situation:

• The importer negotiates a shipment date with the supplier
• The supplier announces a small delay, then another small one, until the importer has no safety margin left.
• The inspection company asks the supplier to present the products two days before ex-factory date (1 day for the inspection, and 1 day for the importer to ask questions and take a decision).
• A few days before the inspection is supposed to take place, the supplier insists that there is no way the products can be packed 2 days before ex-factory date, and the consequence is that no inspection is possible if the shipment date is to be maintained.
• The importer is caught in an uncomfortable situation where he has to choose between an extra delay and an inspection.

There is an easy way to avoid this situation: the buyer should plan in terms of shipment date AND of inspection date (the two at the same time), and he should charge penalties for a delay in any of these two dates. I would add that, over the long term, the most effective strategy is to send consistent signals that quality is non-negotiable, even at the expense of on-time shipping.

What I described above is just an example of a supplier playing games to avoid an inspection.

I also noticed another strategy. The supplier would say “we need to know when there are QC inspections well in advance, not midway through an order; we need to advise the factory and coordinate our internal QC team. Now is too late, please let’s start doing inspections on next production”.

In that case, what I told the importer is that they had better be extra careful–they should either inspect all productions from that supplier, or always let them know at the last moment. Why? Because my suspicion is that the references to be inspected will be made in a nice factory, and the other products will probably be made in a really cheap workshop.

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All these games happen because importers tend to inspect too late… See Why inspecting quality earlier is better.