Anyone tried sourcing materials direct from Chinese factories?

[miike]

I'm frequently purchasing products from China and shipping them to the UK for my business. I could buy the same products in the UK but they are typically at least 4 times as expensive, and usually just ordered from China and then rebranded with the UK name on it anyway. 

 

This has naturally led me to browsing alibaba for potential supplies for my new house. Some initial pricing comparison shows that I could get most things to the UK for about a third of the price I'd pay here. And you can get everything and anything - wood flooring, stone cladding, tiles, bathroom suites, kitchen countertops, stairs, balustrades, lighting etc. 

 

The key issue I see is quality control - knowing who the right person to order from is the biggest hurdle with China. Alibaba offers trade assurance for certain sellers which gives you a lot of protection if things go wrong, but obviously it's much better to get it right the first time. 

 

I'm considering putting together a list of all the different materials I need, shortlisting 3 or 4 different manufacturers in China for each material and then flying out there to go visit them. I can see the factories and inspect the products, decide who I want to order from, then put in a big order for everything and ship it all together in a container. 

 

Has anyone on here tried doing something similar?

[joe90]

A chap who used to be here, .Jeremy Harris, used to get stuff from China, he cited electrical equipment as a possible problem with safety and used to take stuff apart to see if it was safe (a lot was not). He once asked about certificates and was told “we will print whatever you want to see” (I.e. fake) the best one was he complained about a product that had a “CE” mark on it and was told “CE” stood for “Chinese Export” 🤷‍♂️

[Kelvin]

Yes I wouldn’t be importing hokey electrical stuff. 

[miike]

21 minutes ago, joe90 said:

A chap who used to be here, .Jeremy Harris, used to get stuff from China, he cited electrical equipment as a possible problem with safety and used to take stuff apart to see if it was safe (a lot was not). He once asked about certificates and was told “we will print whatever you want to see” (I.e. fake) the best one was he complained about a product that had a “CE” mark on it and was told “CE” stood for “Chinese Export” 🤷‍♂️

 

I think almost every electrical item in my current house is probably made in China. CE certificates can be verified using the certificate number - this is part of the due diligence you've got to do with these companies. 

[Canski]

A customer of mine is off to China next week to nail down an order for several hundred MVHR units rebranded with his company details on them. He says everyone else is doing it so why not him ?

[nod]

I’ve a friend who has a kitchen company He’s been importing from China for years The BBC made a documentary about him 

He was buying solid oak doors by the thousand £1 each 

[miike]

The Canton Fair is on next month - it's the biggest trade fair in China with 60,000 exhibitors. Looking at flights + hotels now. A couple days there and I should have a pretty comprehensive list of who to buy from. 

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

A chap who used to be here, .Jeremy Harris, used to get stuff from China,

His bicycle making mate had trouble with quality control.  To keep the price down the Chinese manufacturer would change the specification, without notification.  This lead to some failures if I remember correctly.

So what you see and agree on, and what is actually delivered, may be different.

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, I was manufacturing come composite cabins.  Was approached by and Indian plastics company that offered to manufacture and deliver to site for us.

The really annoying things was that they would be using the same resins as us, there was only two that were suitable, and both were UK manufactured.

They could buy in at a quarter of the price that we could.  I felt that I was being ripped off by our suppliers.  When one he the reps left and went to work for another supplier, that did not do what we needed, I asked him how much I was over paying on one of the resins.

"About £4/kg" was the reply.

And we were the large users of that resin in the country, we used about 10 tonnes a year, the rest of the country used about half a tonne.

Thieving suppliers.