Many merchants in China can not contact you by phone cause they may be employee in some one company referring export business.

They may doing business with you privately and it is not very easy to establish a company in China.

Replying to [Bob Chen]

I thought it is because the cost.

Think it could reduce the cost of telecommunications

Normally, We will call our customer first when we meet each other and then we get order, make shipment etc. not too many calls.

We should consider to not interrupt the clients too much.

Replying to [Bob Chen]: E-mails are cheaper. telphones are expensive. Secondly, Chinese office timings clashes with the Europe and US office timings because of the time differences. By the time offices in Europe or US opens in the morning, there is already evening in the China. And lastly, most of the people in China are emplyess (export managers) in big companies. They might not be allowed by their seniors to call their buyers frequently. That is why, Chinese prefer E-mails.