i have seen many posts about china, experiences, failures, questions ....
I'm a german living in china since 4 years. I would like to give you some tips based on my experiences and hope others with china experience can do the same. This way instead of spreading the same information through various threads you hopefully can find your answers here.
I will create some individual posts to specific subjects instead of one long monolog. What i write is based on my personal experiences i collected over the last few years. If one of you has made different experiences or has a different opinion, please share it with us. It helps to get the bigger picture as one's individual view cannot reflect all facettes of such a complex subject.
China can still be considered a developing country, but with impressive improvements over the last two decades and in specific areas even same level as the western countries.
Big problems for business are the still poor legal system, lack of standardisation and standardized products, lack of trained personnel, high fluctuation of personnel, lack of quality raw materials, poor english level in most companies.
Some examples: standardization
China is producing for the whole world according to each countries standards, that causes a big mix up in standard components. See here only the different size standards for garments us - european - asian sizes. Or different environmental standards for inks, dyes etc. What is good for one country, can be bad or not permitted in another country.
lack of quality raw materials
i have read in another thread that someone bought sublimation ink from china and was very unhappy with it. In the meantime most chinese have access to good quality materials at affordable prices, but for special products or processes there are still problems.
Shanghai:
Shanghai is the business center of china. Most internationa companies are headquartered here and many chinese companies have sales office for customer service. In Shanghai you can get everything, not manufactured here actually, but its easy to work with the sales offices here or the trading and service companies that can handle additional service you need.
Interesting production here are special items like work uniforms, garments from high tech materials and some special refining services in printing etc.
JiangSu:
Good for general apparel, winter clothes
and workwear.
No. 1 with caps and hats and knitting products like scarfs, gloves etc.
They have also specialties like bamboo, hemp etc.
Usually very good service, good quality and reasonable prices.
Zhejiang:
Good for general apparel, sportswear, workwear, functional clothes, winter clothes like jackets etc.
They have also specialties like bamboo, hemp etc.
Good prices, good quality, service is good but english level is usually a bit poor.
Very high loyalty and service level towards customers
Fujian:
Experts in Rainwear, Swimwear and Winterclothes, especially Windbreaker, Ski Suits etc.
Guangdong:
in Guangdong you get everything, but usually no high end, low to upper medium you get at very good prices, but usually minimum quantities are very high.
Loyalty and service level to the customer is poor
This is just a general overview and does not reflect the whole garment industry in china.
Communication:
From my point, communication is the most important factor for successful business especially dealing with a foreign country.
In different countries you have different standards, different products for comparison ...
Example: when we in germany talk about a car with a big engine, the engine has maybe 2.5L . If an american talks about a car with a big engine, its maybe a 3.5 or 4 L engine.
With garments: a asian size L < european size L < US size L
Tee's: if you talk about a Gildan T-shirt, everybody in US, CA, AU and EU and many other countries knows what it looks like, but here in china i guess maybe only 1000 people of the 1.4 billion know what you are talking about.
Therefore, each detail for your product as basic and simple as it seems to you, specify it, make a sketch, send a sample of a similar product, whatever, but help your chinese supplier to understand what you want, then he can produce you what you want.
For sizes: send detailed size charts
For colors: give exact color codes, pantone or CMYK. Navy blue is for most chinese companies a relativ term.
Stiching: what kind of stitching you want, single, double, cross ...
Material: weight, ringspun, preshrunk, mercerised, organic ......
Cuffs: material, width, thickness, elastic ....
Zipper: metal, plastic, width, color ....
so the list goes on and on. The more details you give to your supplier the fewer bad surprises you will get.
Be also careful with special or technical terms, chinese people like to say yes, yes even if they don't really understand. Make sure your counterpart really knows and understands what you are talking about. As i said before, a sketch or sample is often more helpful than a thousand words.
Easiest way is usually to make an Excel table, put snapshots of your product design in it and draw some arrows to the critical parts and write a shorts specification description.
Make sure your communication with the supplier is perfect, if there is a problem with language or other get professional help to make sure nothing gets lost in translation or misunderstood.
Preparation:
Each country has different import regulations, tariffs .... Before you start to collect offers, make samples and invest a lot of time, make sure you know how the import process for your country works and what costs are related to it.
I have seen in some posts that people have ordered samples or small batch production from china and say, now i wait until it arrives at my door and how much tariff etc. i have to pay. Your purchasing cost is not the price your supplier quotes you FOB China port. There are a lot of costs coming in the process after that can cut deep into your margin if you didn't consider it upfront, especially for small volumes.
How do you calculate prices and make offers to your clients if you don't know all your costs.
Also very dangerous: if your shipping documents are not in order and customs stock your products in their warehouse until you bring the right documents for customs clearance, these charges can be huge !!!
So, prepare yourself, inform yourself in advance, otherwise you get unneccessary headaches and costs.
First you need to think about what kind of supplier you need.
If you have a very small product range, you can find one good supplier- finished .
If you regularly need a lot of different product types, you need several good suppliers. Here it gets often to complicated to handle everything from overseas and it is advisable to use a service company or have a friend or if you have high volumes even your own employee in china to handle the various suppliers for you.
Both suppliers directly and service companies you can find in the same way.
1. Looks very easy in the beginning, Websites like alibaba, made-in-china, .... but as many of you have experienced already, many scammers among them, therefore a lot of further checking neccessary and still high risk of scam.
2. Referrals: if you get contacts from other people, thats usually a very reliable source but do not only count on that contact, because you don't know how well the person has investigated the market, so is it really one of the top suppliers ? Furthermore, whats a perfect supplier for A is not neccessarily the right choice for B if B needs a bit different products than A ....
And if A has negotiated good conditions with the supplier, don't expect to get the same conditions from the start without fighting for it.
3. My preferred source: Exhibitions
Exhibitions are usually the best source to find good suppliers. Participating in Exhibitions is expensive especially if it is abroad. Therefore usually only successful companies can participate in exhibitions, especially abroad. So, now many of you will think i'm crazy asking you to jet around the world to visit exhibitions and find chinese suppliers there. Don't worry, if you go to the exhibitions in your home country you can already find some. If you come to a corresponding exhibition in china, even better. You will find many potential suppliers. If you want it economy class, just go to the websites of major apparel exhibitions worldwide and check their exhibitors list for chinese suppliers. There are often even links to the websites directly, otherwise google or yahoo the company names and see what you find.
4. Use a professional service company in your country with office and people in china, or a local chinese service company with some expatriates . If the service company employs some Expats in china its always better for you, because they speak your language perfectly and understand or have the same standards as you. They usually have already a good network of suppliers and know the market, but of course will also charge a fee for their services.
if you have worked your way through the various sources and found several suppliers, now comes the question how to choose the right supplier.
Investigate on their website and through email, phone contact what kind of products they usually produce. According to their product range, website appearance, speed of reply to email, phone, and competence in their replys, choose at least 5 companies to investigate further. If you have many different product groups and need several suppliers, choose for each main product group 3-5 different suppliers for further investigation. Send them some sample requests to offer. Throw the highest and the lowest offer out, if the lowest is close to the second and third, throw the forth and fifth out, you know what i mean. If 5 companies quote the same product and one is magically 20% cheaper than the others, usually somethings wrong !
At this point you have identified a handful of potential suppliers, now follows the work in details. Make a list of points that are critical for you, e.g. MOQ < 100 per style, can produce with Material a,b and c , can provide samples, production lead time, special printing or refining processes ......
Work with them through your list and see which one can handle all your requirements.
Now you come to a crossroad. At this point you can have your preferred or all of the final potential suppliers make samples for you. Renegotiate with the supplier who sends you the best samples the final prices and other contract terms and send your order.
Second way, if you have someone in china or if the volumes are high enough it makes sense to come personally, visit the final potential suppliers, check their factory, process etc. and then order the samples and based on the visit, offer and samples make your decision.
This is just a rough guideline, depending on your special situation and needs, there can be some more work to do, less is usually not advisable. Sourcing from overseas is not a quick and easy buy to make a easy buck, its a strategic long term decision and action. If you are careless, there are too many pitfalls that can ruin you financially or by reputation. So, if you want to source from overseas, then do it properly, this way you can get the benefits you are looking for.
Some general comments:
Why is it important to ask for many quotations to compare ?
In countries like US, CA, EU you have many suppliers with standard products and a very high price transparency, therefore products of different suppliers are very similar and prices are very similar.
In china you have "0" price transparency, because in the apparels sector you have no standard products, no prices on websites and catalogs. Every price has to be asked for every product and every supplier individually. Therefore the price offers from different suppliers can vary immensely.
Why is it important to define all contract terms and other important details for your order ?
In many western countries we don't have to write every little details down because we have a higher level of business ethics and legal back up based on standard business transactions.
In china you have much less legal back up. Good suppliers have extremely good business ethics, but most others not.
Further most chinese businessmen and women don't like to write things down because they know they sometimes can't keep all the promises they make. For you to be on the safe side, force them to get everything thats important to you in writing.
thanks for your nice feedback. Over the next few days i will put some more information up and hope that others with china experience can add their opinions and tips, too.
Great post. Another recommendation is to really figure out your operation procedure with your supplier. Many suppliers are quite flexible in their operating procedure, but they are so flexible it screws up the entire goal of working together and making a smooth production. This goes both ways. The best production that I see are those where communication is minimal and efficient, but all matters are clearly addressed. Make it clear how you plan to proceed with development and production and understand whether they are able to follow this plan accordingly. A recommendation would be as follows:
1) Provide a complete tech pack to your supplier and advise them of your operating terms
2) Get a complete price quote from them and understand what kind of similar products (i.e. using similar raw materials) that they have done in the past year
3) If you agree, then request sampling AND definitely a correct sample of each material used in the production of the garment
4) If your check list here is complete, then it is just a routine of asking for sample and confirming a sample and then issuing the order.
5) If you have quality concerns, you can always protect yourself by hiring an outside QC company, but you should advise your supplier in advance as well on the QC requirements (AQL standard?) as people would like to know in advance whether they have to make certain accomodations during the production process. The worst thing for everybody is completing production and not accepting the product.
Basically, the goal should be to keep it as simple as possible. The more information and communication you inundate your supplier with (especially during the middle of production), the worse it becomes for all parties.
Tips for China sourcing 
Re: Tips for China sourcing 
