According to statistics and surveys, a huge amount of stainless steel sinks are imported from China. Most factories with the best product standards are located in the commercial cities of Jiangmen, Foshan, Guangdong province. Hence, every wholesale buyer would love to order from companies in China.
Yet, you should be careful when ordering stainless steel sinks from china to avoid mistakes. Some of these pitfalls may be too grievous and may lead to losses in your business. It’s best to have knowledge of these traps so that you don’t fall into them.
As a business owner you may want to be mindful of fraudulent persons that want to cheat you. Also, try and establish a good communication channel between you and your supplier. This medium helps you to understand the fundamentals of purchasing sinks from china.
Let’s cut to the chase. While you are looking for the best stainless steel sinks, be mindful of these traps. Here are 10 pitfalls you may want to avoid when purchasing stainless steel sinks from china.
Pitfalls You May Fall into When Ordering Stainless Steel Sinks from China
Have to pay high sample fee/mold fee
When ordering for a newly developed sample, you might fall for high sample fees or mold fee. While this is also good to get unique molds, you may want to avoid the incidence of overpaying for it. Some suppliers like to take advantage of unsuspecting buyers and milk them dry.
One way to avoid paying high mold fees is to check numerous suppliers around the province. Its best to weigh the prices of various dealers to get an average rate for a new mold. This way you get to know which manufacturer wants to cheat you.
Now you might be tempted to give up your request for a sample, but there are cheaper suppliers. All you have to do is conduct thorough research on the wares’ best prices before placing an order.
Buying Damaged Products
Most wholesale buyers fall for this pitfall due to a whole lot of reasons. One of the reasons is the failure to ask for the necessary certificates. Those certificates help to endorse a supplier.
The standards for these certifications are mainly in quality and environmental management. Then, the brands get a certificate to show that they have attained a level of quality in their products.
The standard of inspection majorly is that a stainless steel sink must systematically improve environmental management. It does not state a specific environmental performance criterion. The company producing the item must ensure it conforms to standard quality policies.
Furthermore, you may want to conduct a last-minute inspection before the packaging and shipping. If you can’t do it in person, you can pay a third party to run the check.
Ordering Inferior Products
One trick suppliers may want to play on a buyer is sending deformed or rusty products to the final order. The product deformation is due to the raw materials using materials with insufficient thickness. For example, the supplier gives you the 18 Gauge materials, but you are deceived of using the 16 Gauge materials.
Most times the manufacturing company gets some of these products into your order. The best way to stop this is to ensure thorough inspection before shipping or transporting the order. This is one of the best ways to avoid the pitfall of getting inferior products in your order.
Late and insufficient Deliveries
Some suppliers are fond of delivering your orders after the agreed time. It’s a normal procedure for a supplier to inform the buyer every step of the way. As a supplier, you should try to keep the clients updated about their order.
They should know of every disappointment and reduction in the quantity of their products. However, most factory agents may not want to be entirely sincere. They prefer to keep such sensitive information to themselves. This may cause total disrespect of the contracts on the ground.
The buyer also should not raise expectations too high to avoid dashing of hope. You can also keep tabs on the company through a third party company.
Inability/unwillingness to reach the desired quality standard
Another issue you could have with suppliers is their inability to match your desired standard. While some may compromise on their standard for a refund, other buyers would stick to their wits. This issue brings about different results in the buyer-supplier relationship.
The fraction of buyers who are willing to take a reduction in quality would maintain a cordial link to the factory. But the other insisting party may have issues with the sellers. One way of avoiding this pitfall is to inform the supplier that you cannot sell substandard products in your region.
This prior alert helps them to work towards achieving your desired quality. And it would help if a supplier evaluates every buyer’s quality and standard.
Poor communication
You may lose so much to a poor communication channel or method. Some suppliers may purposely keep you in the dark about a delay detected weeks earlier. The glitch may have been reported a long time before the deadline. Poor communication strains a working connection.
One way to maintain a profitable relationship with a business partner is by healthy communication. You can always tell your supplier whatever you need in a product through a good means of contact. You may also monitor the progress of a new sample through the same channel.
Choosing the Right channel Not Cheapest channel
You may want to go with the correct buying channel to avoid fraudulent agents. Even if you are a first time buyer in china,some platforms that help newcomers to buy standard products. These platforms will help create a link between you and the factory.
They also help to ensure that the suppliers have the required certifications for a standard quality product. Registration on these sites may not be cheap as it requires stages of credit approval. But it will save you from the trap of fraudsters who pose as suppliers.
Unnecessary Increase of Price after Payment and Production
Some suppliers make it a habit to inflate the prices of orders unnecessarily. They may blame this increase on a reason that doesn’t relate to the production cost. For instance, a stainless steel sink manufacturer may increase his rates because of a rise in oil price.
From the above instance, you could see that there’s no direct relation to production costs. Moreover, they may not give a detailed explanation of the effect. Another way they set this trap is to widen the margin far beyond the average increase rate.
The best way to avoid this pitfall is to associate with trustworthy dealers and suppliers. You may also go for an alternative material or product. Furthermore, you can insist that the supplier should give an objective data backup to the increase.
Lack of transparency
This case may be that of a supplier or manufacturer subcontracting the production to another. In most cases it may be a smaller factory in terms of size and expertise. They do this to reduce the cost of producing samples and also make more profit. The wrong aspect of this practice is that they don’t inform the clients/buyers.
More so, the supplier may change the components of the order behind the client. Or worse still, he may reduce the quality of products during the production process. While you may be okay with it at the end of the transaction, it shows dishonesty on the supplier.
You may also want to check out suppliers who overstate production cost to increase wired deposit. The best thing is to tell the client every reason and seek their approval. Buyers may also check for certified factories with a standard and documented production process.
Non-respect for IP rights
This here is one of the biggest issues clients have with their suppliers. Most manufacturers may sell or try to market a client’s patented design to another for money. Even though they developed the sample, they must respect the intellectual property rights of the buyer.
This behavior to many imitation products occurs in the market. It also leads to a loss of reliability for the buyer in the face of his customers. Imagine a situation where you, as a buyer, assures your customer of exclusivity only to see the product on the market. Such is the effect of flaunting the IP rights of a buyer.
Conclusion
When ordering stainless steel sinks from China, you may want to avoid falling into fraudulent traps. These pitfalls are due to unregistered factories or suppliers who always want to deceive unsuspecting clients. The first way to prevent them is to take note of these pitfalls.
This article highlighted 10 pitfalls you may fall into when ordering stainless steel sinks from China. You don’t want to lose your customers because you got the wrong order or substandard products. So, you may want to know these traps to help you avoid them.
