As “Made in China” products are rolling into people’s daily life all around world, as a business owner, sometimes it is hard to source the best item for their business without dealing with Chinese suppliers. As the most used & Well known Chinese Ecommerce Business group, Alibaba might be one of the vendor & Products sources you can not miss out.

Actually Alibaba Inc is a big group company, it contains 20+ Subsidiaries. The most known for trading & Whoelsale business are:

Alibaba.com

Aliexpress.com

1688.com.

1. Alibaba.com is their global B2B website where you can find almost everything item you are sourcing about, to be a supplier on Alibaba.com, the supplier must have a formal business license no matter as a factory or trading company. (In fact there are way too many trading companies there also many sole business guys on it as long as they have decent business license issued by Chinese Government).
2. Aliexpress.com is their so called “retail & deal” website, which are basically full of individual sellers, they do not require any business license there. MOST of the sellers are not professional both on product and customer service, in fact, many of the sellers on this site just list as many items as they want(legal or illegal), when order roll in, payment received, they will buy it from local marketplace or 1688.com then ship to customers.
3. 1688.com is another wholesale site belonging to Alibaba group. But it is all in Chinese language, and it is for Chinese market only. If you happen to know Chinese, or you can find a vendor on it who can deal with English customers, then you should check about that. The good thing about 1688 is that for the same product, the price will be much better than alibaba.com and Aliexpress.com, and some suppliers there are very decent business owners as most of who need to pay about RMB 60000 (USD 10000) Per year to Alibaba as a Membership fee. There are lots of real factories on 1688 who actually manufacture product by themselves. But keep in mind there are also lots of middle man business who purchase items from local marketplace.

As a matter of fact, tons of products are made in china. And there are many factories in China. But that does not mean you can easily find a factory on Alibaba which can happily produce the perfect product for your business.

How to find the best vendor for your business?

What kind of suppliers can I find on Alibaba?

Personally I would like to Classify all business Units from China as 4 different grades/levels, they are:

AAA  factory

AA  factory

A   factory

Sole Business

AAA factory: Those factories who produce high quality products with mass quantity for brand companies. For example, the factories who make Nike shoes, UGG boots, Gucci bag & accessories. These factories are big and famous in their business circle, they never sell anything or market themselves online. Basically you can’t find them anywhere online (including Alibaba.com), and most of them have strict contract with brands and they hardly manufacture products for other companies beside their customers.

AA factory: Those factories make decent quality products for OEM customers or small brands. Most of these factories have marketing department with well-trained Employees who speaking great English, they are proud to present their factory to customers, they always willing to take more orders or customize products for your business. Sometimes These factories are the most popular vendors in industry cause they making decent quality products with decent prices, plus some even with great customer service & communication. But sadly, most of these factories are not on Alibab, 1688 or Aliexpress. Because most of which have got steady customers & orders already, they prefer to take orders from old customers like trading companies from Hong Kong, Tai wan, USA. But still, a few of these factories are seeking orders online, these factories can be trusted and if you deal and communicate with them well, you can get pretty awesome results.

A Factory: This kind of factory is the most common ones you can find on Alibaba or other B2B platform. You can call them “small factory” or “workshop”, these factories do manufacture products for customers, but they have got poor quality control, they have very few employees (some of them do not even have workers until they get orders need to be produced), some of which are family business. Some of them only take second-hand orders from other factory or trading companies. I am not saying that these factories can’t be trusted, in fact many customers love them because they can always provide the “best price”. The most awful thing about these kinds of factory is that some of them do not have business Ethics, for example, they do not value copyright, they might sell customers’ products to other folks without permission, they might delay customer’s orders without notification or reparation… In fact when you are dealing with these factories, most time the result really depends on the factory owner! If the owner is a good & kind person, it can turn out great! Otherwise dealing with them can be very troublesome.

Sole Business:  As long as you can get an official business license in China, anyone’s product can be listed on Alibaba.com. So here comes the sole business type. Those guys who believe they can serve international customers’ product need are happy to present themselves to you. Some of them have their own small trading companies while some do not. Usually these guys are working closely with one or more “real factories” and list factories’ products as their own. Some of them will lie to you to claim the he/she is factory, while some may tell you the truth that they are trading company or sole business, usually these guys really know something about their products &niche, and are able to provide pretty well customer service & communication. Some of them even provide you free samples if you show your honesty. The ugly thing is that most of them can not control factory (because it is not theirs), if the order procedure goes wrong, they might get you in a ugly position without a valid solution.  Meanwhile, most of these sole business owners do not take risk at all instead they transfer risk to their customers, they require full pre-payment or half pre-payment. At same time, if the order goes wrong, they hardly make any reparation to their customers. To deal with these business, you are going to need luck. If you are lucky enough, then everybody wins. Also it is very important to test and verify the qualification of the guy if you decide to use them, both for product Knowledge and Honesty. Once you find a nice one who working well for you, it really can save you money & time and deliver good result.

By getting some insider of the business type of Chinese vendors, I am sure you can easily find out the fact that most time you are only able to get access to” A factories” and “sole businesses” from Alibaba. I have heard too many people Complain about “made in china” products are junk, and the products & vendors Alibaba presented are bad, somehow it is true because there do have many good suppliers but only very few of them are listed on Alibaba.

So here comes the question: How to find the best supplier for your business?

Every business owner has different demands, finding the best supplier who working perfectly for your business can be challenging. Here’s some tips I would like to advise if you happen to look for vendors for your business on Alibaba;

1. Browser their Alibaba site or page. Check their product image quality, decription & title quality. Qualified suppliers will only use their own pictures with great quality and clear contents, some of them will watermark their picture with company logo to protect their image property. Qualified suppliers have rich experience about product title, description and product properties, check as much as you can to make sure they really know the stuff they are manufacturing(or purchasing).
2. Communicate with their sale person. The better language skills they got, the more reliable the supplier will be. Good companies will hire skilled employee for sale department. “Not so good” companies usually hire graduate who might not able to handle business query.
3. Take serious actions about sample. Ask for sample from the supplier you interested to work with, or send your sample to the supplier to discuss further procedures. Sometimes suppliers do not understand your requirement until them seeing your sample. And sample is very important for quotation. Close the door if supplier is not able to provide you samples or do not want to receive your sample.
4. Acting like big companies for your business Practice. Be professional about your products, marketing, package, artwork, inspection and shipment. Make budget plan for your items before supplier starting to make them. And tell everything you concerned about to your supplier and check their response to verify if both sides understand each other. Ask as many questions as you can before placing your order.
5. Do not bargain excessively! Every business deserve a good product source & price, but as long as your supplier providing you the correct cost for your project, I would like to advise you to stop bargaining too much, making your supplier staying in profitable, that will make all transactions smoothly.

(To be Continued..)