recently i received a inquiry from an india customer, he ask me to post some samples to him, but he said he has no express account, so he suggested me to post samples by registered mail. what should i do? refuse or do according his requirement? expect some kindly people whith business experience in alibaba to help me, thank you!

Replying To  [robbinluo]:

In that case I would send them via normal mail.

It is clear that he does not want to pay for the charges.

It is your decision, but that is what I would do.

Replying to [grigo]:Yep,I agree.

Replying to [robbinluo]:
even by registered mail, the customer should pay postage and sample charges.

Replying to [robbinluo]:It's normal.
We also have been done as like this.
But we are got no any reply after we are sending out the samples.
I think that the customer they want the samples to using by themself. not for order .

Replying to [robbinluo]:
It depends on how about this client is.If you consider he is a real buyer.you can try to persuade him send by DHL and freight charge collected.Also can tell him that if he place order,you can take charge back to him.If he insist on normal post,Do it.It just needs about 20RMB.If you don't do,there has no business.

Replying to [robbinluo]:

We normally sent a lot of free samples to our buyers globally but prefer to get their courier account. If they don't have and insist to send the samples via normal post we prefer to get cheaper mode like EMS or some private internationl Courier. And know by send samples we may get the chance to enter with a business relationship. And offcourse it is a promotion of your product and shows a geniunity of your company that you are really serious. It happens that we get the revert from15- 20% of the buyers only and remaining will be silent forever. But these 25% are ones for whom we have spent a lot with others. and these will give a quantum of business which motivate us to give away free samples to get new actual buyers.

There may be serveral reason for silence, may be product is different from what they are looking, Quality or other compliances, Price and communication issues. Procurement plannings and others..

If you won't may be you will loose some prospective buyers as well. It's upto you. That you want money for samples or you want good business comming up...?

It sounds like a normal request to me. If the buyer does not use DHL, FedEx and so on much, it will cost far far less to use normal mail. I do agree though that you should ask for payment. If it is possible for you to accept a credit card payment, PayPal or something similar you should suggest this for the sample. Even if you ask for a telegraphic transfer, the bank charges could well be less than the difference between the cost of normal mail and the cost to a new customer of using DHL or FedEx.

You have to decide on your approach to the risk of the customer wanting the goods for themselves rather than trade. You may risk losing an order if you don't send the goods. You can ask for details of the company, web site and so on but remember that expectations are different in different countries. In my country, for example, no established company would use a hotmail email address for business while in other countries this is common. In my view if the person is willing to cover the cost of shipping plus the cost of the item and if you can find a payment method that suits you both, you should send the sample.

Replying to [JUGAL TRADERS]:
I agree that

Replying to [robbinluo]:

There's nothing abnormal about a buyer requesting that samples, as long as they're not high value items, be sent by normal mail. Normal mail can mean registered air mail or EMS at your post office. I have so far done this kind of sample delivery twice and both times the samples were received in good condition. The registered airmal took about 10 days but the EMS took just 5 days. And I paid for them, part of a supplier's investment if her/his products are not high value items.

Will I do this for any buyer? No, of course not. I have to assess if the buyer is serious or not and weigh the likelihood that he or she will approve of my products. If I am confident on both counts, then I will go ahead; if not I'll inform my buyer accordingly and wait for my next buyer.

Hope that makes sense. Best of luck to your business.

macs2005

Replying to [robbinluo]:almost of my customers from Middle east market,so when need to send the samples,the customer always told me:What?What courier account?I without it,But as my experience,you can send by TNT,The TNT accept freight collected,
you can tell your customer,When the samples reach your customer's place,let your customer pay the cash to the TNT company and then let you know how much he paid and then you can make a record and if order happened,you deduct the postage from the order amount,I found alll customer can accept it,So pls try to negoiate with your customers,I found the customer who accept the freight collected is more serious in bussiness.

Try this way...

Good Luck....