Don't miss a post

In the majority of inspections, the situation looks like this: The buyer pays for the inspection, and wants the inspector to be objective. If anything, the inspector should be too tough with the supplier, not too easy. The supplier … [Read more...]

Buyers often take decisions based on QC reports, but most of them have no idea about the industry-specific terms. I noticed that I spent time explaining the same things over and over again. So last April I wrote a four-part tutorial to … [Read more...]

As I wrote before, some suppliers try to discredit third-party inspectors, in an attempt to persuade their customer to stop doing QC. That's why serious inspection firms have to maintain a certain standard of professionalism. One remark … [Read more...]

Last week, a supplier was apparently very fed up with our inspectors' visits. They pretended that our inspections, even though they might be helpful in uncovering issues before shipment, cost them some money. And these costs should be borne … [Read more...]

Yesterday, one of my clients called me to get my opinion on an issue they are facing. He imports garments into the EU, and the composition written on the labeling has to be true within 3 percentage points. For example, he is not in … [Read more...]

A supplier complained to my client that our inspections don't help them improve their quality level. A bit of context: for this client we perform inspections during production (as soon as there are a few finished products) on the biggest … [Read more...]

QC inspections often fail. Actually, most of the time there is at least a discrepancy and/or too many defects. When my Chinese inspectors announce that the inspection is failed, the supplier usually focuses on the points that triggered … [Read more...]

I received a message from a potential client who is starting to import garments into the US. I broke it up in different parts, and I inserted my responses below. It might be helpful to other importers wondering how to comply with their … [Read more...]

This week my company had a booth on a China Sourcing Fair. I noticed that some questions/remarks came back regularly. A few days ago I wrote about importers who ask us the contacts of good factories. Another hot topic was how easily a … [Read more...]