Business is slow and they are promoting their product and for potential business. But I am thinking that honest and sincerity would be more important in business!

Quoting from [Joel from China]:

Quoting from [jadedev]:

Hey newbies,

I found this post in the China forum, thought I share my thoughts with you.

Topic: Where are the reall buyers ?

I received some inquries. Some of them are written very honestly  .

Then i reply them carefully and hopefully

but no reply , WHY??

Can they receive our reply ? Why do they  ignore my reply if they receive ? Why do they send inquries if they  ignore???

When you first start out, you will have a lot of questions. You send questions to suppliers about the products, payment terms and supplier give their replies.  They then ask you some questions about your business etc etc to know you better.

The email ping pong could go on for weeks, it's only natural you want to know more before you commit your hard earn dollars.  Suppliers can sometimes get annoyed, but hey, without buyers, they would go out of business. 

Have you ever asked a question but got an answer to a different question. Example:

me: What is the colour of the chicken?

you: The duck is brown. Very cheap, want to buy? Let's go into production.

I asked about chicken but was told about the duck.  If the supplier doesn't correct their mistake, then chances are the customer will simply give up and look for a new supplier. Would you deal with somebody who take your hard earn cash but don't give you want you ordered?

To communicate successfully, be as specific as possible. If you don't have the exact details, then tell the other party. Keep them informed, don't let them guess, because guessing will lead to more guesses and the end result is a major problem.

Example:

I like you to manufacture t-shirt using pattern CCDD001 listed on your web site (or catalogue no 123, January 2009).  But I am after a lighter fabric. Not too sure what weigh I want.  I am looking between 80 and 120gsm, 65/35 poly cotton. Please send me some swatches and I will confirm. My colour will be choosen from a pentone chart.

Let's analyse.

a.  I tell them what design I want and the source of the design.    Some companies recycles their product code. It's rare but it happens.  So in one catalogue, product code 123 is a chicken, the next catalogue it's a duck.

b. I tell them I am not sure what fabric i want and ask them to provide fabric sample. The supplier doesn't have to guess the fabric.  Just imagine if they gave me 130gsm, when I wanted 80gsm.

c. I provide the colour from pentone chart, then there is no dispute.  Notice I didn't just ask for "pink" because you see pink differently to me. 

I am a newbie buyer, I have never imported anything in the past and the items I am after are not the most common items, I contacted a few suppliers on here and posted what I wanted also and have had loads of replies but some seem totally unrelated to my request so I ignore them, others were too high priced so I ignore them untill I have decided who to deal with then I will try to send a short polite message to say something like thank you, I have decided who to deal with.
I am going to wait a few more days to see if I get any better offers after the new year holiday ends and then place an order, it will not be big but if things go well it may grow by the second order ( Im ordering about 250kg of metal items ), cost seems good including shipping but next I need to find out about import duty and tax here in england and about collecting from the port.