I have had a lot of bad experiences with Chinese suppliers. This year alone I ordered thousands of an LED novelty. The supplier sent me a picture of the packaging which had Santa Clause on. I asked if he could send different packaging instead of Santa on, he replied he would. The items arrived with Santa on - in March this year!! I could not sell them and lost hundreds of orders. The supplier offered to send me $1,000 USD as compensation but then totally ignored all my e mails. I was stuck with these items and they did not care.
Later this year I purchased some samples of a swing car. I ordered 4 to show customers. When they arrived, they were badly damaged and the stickers were torn, I could not show them. The supplier has ignored all my e mails. I paid $300 USD to import them.
My last order was placed with a taiwanese company with the factory in China. I was having a 10% failure rate with one of their products. During this time I had sent $4,000 USD for another order. I e mailed to cancel the order because of the failure rate. I hey had also sent some samples to me ( which I did not request) to see if I was interested in them. When I asked for my money back, they said only if I paid for the samples!!!! It then took them 4 weeks to send my money back ( less all the bank charges).
Can anyone tell me why I should continue to buy from China?
If I spent $1,000,000 dollars with these people, they would not dare do that. So, when I hear from chinese manufacturers that they like to supply small companies and would 'like to work in partnership' I do not believe them. I am unlikely to buy from China again and have souced items now from India. UNLESS somebody can convince me that these are just useless suppliers and there are some good ones out there.
Bad luck, man. But, have a second think, when we have an unhappy deal, we usually blame or complain our suppliers or distributors, not ourselves. We just wanna prove that we are always 100% right and they are absolutely wrong. But can that be true?
A good deal or partnership needs good communication and cooperation of two parts or more.
Quoting from [forx]:
lol.excactly the reply ive come to expect."we've got your money,we've sent the wromg products and its your fault!!......lol..amazing.
Yes I agree. We send a lot of e mails to suppliers as we need to make absolutely certain that this is what we require. We import LED novelties and |I need to make sure it complies with my customers needs as it is being sold to children. Most of the time, the supplier says it does one thing, but when it arrives, it doesn't!
And is there no Post Offices in China? Why do samples have to be sent by carrier? I paid $120USD for some samples last week. When they arrived there were 6 missing. Supplier didn't have the decency to tell me he wasn't sending the whole lot, and yet I paid for them! He is now refusing to send the rest I asked and paid for as the freight cost is too high. !!! The parcel could have been sent air mail fro $20USD. Why can suppliers not use that facility?
Quoting from [Hagard]:Bad luck, man. But, have a second think, when we have an unhappy deal, we usually blame or complain our suppliers or distributors, not ourselves. We just wanna prove that we are always 100% right and they are absolutely wrong. But can that be true?
A good deal or partnership needs good communication and cooperation of two parts or more.
Bad Luck? Sorry I don't think luck has anything to do with it!. If you read my message you will see that I asked for that packaging not to be sent. If a supplier does not understand my requirements, they should ask.
I cannot accept that bad luck is why suppliers send poor quality stuff over or refuse to send money back or send goods not correctly packaged. That is not bad luck man, that is useless suppliers
Quoting from [Skyliner]:I have had a lot of bad experiences with Chinese suppliers. This year alone I ordered thousands of an LED novelty. The supplier sent me a picture of the packaging which had Santa Clause on. I asked if he could send different packaging instead of Santa on, he replied he would. The items arrived with Santa on - in March this year!! I could not sell them and lost hundreds of orders. The supplier offered to send me $1,000 USD as compensation but then totally ignored all my e mails. I was stuck with these items and they did not care.
Later this year I purchased some samples of a swing car. I ordered 4 to show customers. When they arrived, they were badly damaged and the stickers were torn, I could not show them. The supplier has ignored all my e mails. I paid $300 USD to import them.
My last order was placed with a taiwanese company with the factory in China. I was having a 10% failure rate with one of their products. During this time I had sent $4,000 USD for another order. I e mailed to cancel the order because of the failure rate. I hey had also sent some samples to me ( which I did not request) to see if I was interested in them. When I asked for my money back, they said only if I paid for the samples!!!! It then took them 4 weeks to send my money back ( less all the bank charges).
Can anyone tell me why I should continue to buy from China?
If I spent $1,000,000 dollars with these people, they would not dare do that. So, when I hear from chinese manufacturers that they like to supply small companies and would 'like to work in partnership' I do not believe them. I am unlikely to buy from China again and have souced items now from India. UNLESS somebody can convince me that these are just useless suppliers and there are some good ones out there.
After reading your experience ,I feel really sorry and terrible for our Chinese company . And I do realise why the trader with foreign people become harder and harder.
I have been a foreign trader for nearly half a year.Every
Quoting from [Skyliner]:I have had a lot of bad experiences with Chinese suppliers. This year alone I ordered thousands of an LED novelty. The supplier sent me a picture of the packaging which had Santa Clause on. I asked if he could send different packaging instead of Santa on, he replied he would. The items arrived with Santa on - in March this year!! I could not sell them and lost hundreds of orders. The supplier offered to send me $1,000 USD as compensation but then totally ignored all my e mails. I was stuck with these items and they did not care.
Later this year I purchased some samples of a swing car. I ordered 4 to show customers. When they arrived, they were badly damaged and the stickers were torn, I could not show them. The supplier has ignored all my e mails. I paid $300 USD to import them.
My last order was placed with a taiwanese company with the factory in China. I was having a 10% failure rate with one of their products. During this time I had sent $4,000 USD for another order. I e mailed to cancel the order because of the failure rate. I hey had also sent some samples to me ( which I did not request) to see if I was interested in them. When I asked for my money back, they said only if I paid for the samples!!!! It then took them 4 weeks to send my money back ( less all the bank charges).
Can anyone tell me why I should continue to buy from China?
If I spent $1,000,000 dollars with these people, they would not dare do that. So, when I hear from chinese manufacturers that they like to supply small companies and would 'like to work in partnership' I do not believe them. I am unlikely to buy from China again and have souced items now from India. UNLESS somebody can convince me that these are just useless suppliers and there are some good ones out there.
After reading your experience ,I feel really sorry and terrible for our Chinese company . And I do realise why the trader with foreign people become harder and harder.
I have been a foreign trader for nearly half a year.Every time my customer ask me whether i can do that ,I will go to boss ans make sure of that.I think to be honest to my customers is very important.And I will try my best to solve the problem fo rmy customers.Of course ,some times I failed.
Refer to samples ,I usually provide free samples ,but the cost to send the samples is really highnot matter by express or by post office.In fact a lot of small company shoose to send the samples by post office ,but it is also very expensive ,and cost long time.But some of customers just ask the samples ,but didn't afford the cost of sending ,and after getting the samples ,they disappeared.as a small comapny ,it can not afford such kind of lost for several times.So a lot of comapny will ask the customer to afford the cost of sending .
In my mind ,the Chinese people should be more honest and careful to the customers ,and do as themselves promised.And both of the business parts to understand each other more to promote the world economy.
Quoting from [skyliner]:Quoting from [Hagard]:Bad luck, man. But, have a second think, when we have an unhappy deal, we usually blame or complain our suppliers or distributors, not ourselves. We just wanna prove that we are always 100% right and they are absolutely wrong. But can that be true?
A good deal or partnership needs good communication and cooperation of two parts or more.
Bad Luck? Sorry I don't think luck has anything to do with it!. If you read my message you will see that I asked for that packaging not to be sent. If a supplier does not understand my requirements, they should ask.I cannot accept that bad luck is why suppliers send poor quality stuff over or refuse to send money back or send goods not correctly packaged. That is not bad luck man, that is useless suppliers
Compeletely agree man -this is not luck- just complete dishonesty and maybe there is a deeper problem here. I live in China and the mentality here for a lot of suppliers, and certainly not all (to answer your previous question, there are many honest suppliers here),
is that you are so far away that there is nothing you can do. Which is bascially true -there is little recourse for westerners/Non-mainland Chinese unless you have someone here on the ground whom you trust to sort things out.
It may be prudent to look into having someone from your organisation based here part -time to actually go to these agents/suppliers and stand there while stuff gets done. It is a cost but this person can maybe handle a number of orders at the one time, moving between suppliers.
So i hope everything gets together in the future for you. There are honest traders here and the others - sometimes you have to make honest traders out of them through vigilance and education.
Quoting from [Dietrich]:Quoting from [skyliner]:Quoting from [Hagard]:Bad luck, man. But, have a second think, when we have an unhappy deal, we usually blame or complain our suppliers or distributors, not ourselves. We just wanna prove that we are always 100% right and they are absolutely wrong. But can that be true?
A good deal or partnership needs good communication and cooperation of two parts or more.
Bad Luck? Sorry I don't think luck has anything to do with it!. If you read my message you will see that I asked for that packaging not to be sent. If a supplier does not understand my requirements, they should ask.I cannot accept that bad luck is why suppliers send poor quality stuff over or refuse to send money back or send goods not correctly packaged. That is not bad luck man, that is useless suppliers
Compeletely agree man -this is not luck- just complete dishonesty and maybe there is a deeper problem here. I live in China and the mentality here for a lot of suppliers, and certainly not all (to answer your previous question, there are many honest suppliers here),
is that you are so far away that there is nothing you can do. Which is bascially true -there is little recourse for westerners/Non-mainland Chinese unless you have someone here on the ground whom you trust to sort things out.It may be prudent to look into having someone from your organisation based here part -time to actually go to these agents/suppliers and stand there while stuff gets done. It is a cost but this person can maybe handle a number of orders at the one time, moving between suppliers.
So i hope everything gets together in the future for you. There are honest traders here and the others - sometimes you have to make honest traders out of them through vigilance and education.
Hello there,
I understand there may be some basic differences in the way business and life are conducted in China compared to the rest of the world. This does not excuse dishonesty. But education may help when talking business with Chinese suppliers .There is actually a section in this site which I thought captured the Chinese mindset fairly well, if it can be captured at all -we are all still individuals. Maybe you can paste this link
http://resources.alibaba.com/article/157/Business_Culture_throughout_China.htm
Well good luck in the future
I am a chinese supplier. First I have to say sorry for, as a Chinese, this mistake or service attitude still exist in this competitive market now. But foreinge trade in china, is this few year's new coming business. Most of the new factory do not know how to be perfessional. So it came with this happening. But i have to say that to soursing in china is not a very easy job, not like shopping in the super market, not doing business with only money trasfering in net. All the detail thing must be double confirm by you, you have to controll everything but not wait for report from Factory. Even you have to fly to factory for just only some small spare part. I should say that this is not a easy working, sir! With my less experience and stupid idea on your case as below.
Re: the sample with santa on
Do not trasfer the money so quickly, must tell factory send you all picture to confirm it send out or not. After you make sure this is what you need, then give them money and sent out. I don't think they will send you the other sample any more. Or for save, you could check it by yourself if convenience for you.
Re: swing car you bought
I am sure this is the accident or mistake to the package before air or ship. Most of factory do not care about this or less experience on their new sample's sending out. So the same, you must take picture again, or better go and see the sample package and the sample, double confirming the quality.
Re: second order on the failure product
To place an order, it must take a long time. Testing, marketing promoting, anything i do know..... PLease do not leave you in the hurry possition. That would be a nightmare for your coming business. You must controll all the movement of your factory.
The last, I am so sorry if i hurt you and my useless word. i am sure that this kind of factory exactly exist in the market, but it also have very perfessional here. Don't give up all by this small fish.
I am looking forward you and any other teach me any better idea or keep this up.
Absoultely agree with what Haward said!!
In China,there is a proverb." You can clap with one hand!".Sometimes you think you are right,all that's the supplier's fault.That' s unfair.
In the competitive market, more and more suppliers want to attract buyers by good service, reasonable price ,top quality and so on. Nobody wants to lost a good buyer.