In my previous post, I talked about the importance of PPC advertising on the Amazon FBA platform. I discussed the effects of negative keywords on your business and profit margins, something that not many sellers take into consideration. In today’s post, however, I want to tackle something that plays an even bigger role when it comes to selling physical products on Amazon: how to find manufacturers in China and use them to order private label products for your business.

Please keep in mind that finding a trustworthy supplier that can fulfill your demands lies at the core of this business. This is something that, if done right, can make you successful, or, seriously harm your business.

Please keep reading on in order to avoid possible mistakes.

How to find manufacturers in China

In almost all cases, when we think of a place from which we can source products to sell through Amazon FBA, we think of China. Yes, due to political changes in the US and imposed tariffs on goods coming from that part of the world, certain products may now become less profitable than they used to be. In the worst cases, due to high competition, some products have completely lost their profitability, which means that selling them would be financially a bad decision to make.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of products and product types that will make you a lot of money. Besides, if you go into selling on Amazon FBA, make sure that you sell your products in the EU as well, where no extra tariffs have been imposed… yet.

Recommended read: What to Sell on Amazon FBA and What to Watch out For

So, once you have come up with up a product that you would like to sell, the next question that arises is, how to find manufacturers in China? Alibaba.com

Alibaba is the place where you will find a supplier for your product. It’s basically like Aliexpress, which is similar to Amazon, but instead of buying an item or two at a time, you buy in large quantities. As Wikipedia points it out, “Aliababa.com is the world’s largest online business-to-business trading platform for small businesses”. In other words, you pay less per item, but you have to buy a lot.

The process

Luckily, finding a factory on Alibaba.com isn’t hard at all. It’s the process of choosing the right one that is a bit more complicated.

Not only will you need to make an educated decision based on the data that you have received from the factory, but you will also often need to go with the gut feeling. Don’t be surprised though, much of entrepreneurship is based on the gut feeling. As a matter of fact, some of the most successful entrepreneurs say that if it wasn’t their gut feeling, they wouldn’t have become the people they became to be. Entrepreneurship as a combination of science and art, if you will.

Search

Nevertheless, once you are on Alibaba’s homepage, type into the search bar the product that you are looking for. In this case, let’s make it the famous “garlic press”.

Once you hit search, you will see a number of results. At this stage disregard the prices that you see!!! You will separately contact the suppliers and ask them for the price, weight and dimensions. The prices you see here are usually not precise.

You see a page full of results. What you are interested in is the:

Number of years – the number of years that the factory has been in business. If it’s their first year, they may be new to the industry and may make mistakes.

Diamond icon – supplier’s transaction amount. The higher the volume, the better. This means that the company has clients and that their products are in demand.

Crown with a dollar symbol – the company uses Trade Assurance, which is basically Alibaba’s safe way for you to pay the supplier. If something went wrong with your order and you paid using trade assurance, it’s possible to get a refund.

Percentage – it’s the response rate. If it’s 50%, only 50% of the messages that are sent to the supplier received a response with 24 hours. If it’s 100%, then the supplier is super responsive, which is what we like.

Contact

Let’s assume you have found a number of suppliers that are suitable and you like, as in this case, the garlic press that they make. From this point on, there are a few different things that you can do:

If you wish to see more garlic presses from this particular factory, or maybe you want to learn more about the factory itself, click on the product’s image. From there on you will be taken to another page with more information about the product. To browse the supplier’s website, click on “View Company profile”.

But if you are happy with what you see and you have decided to contact the supplier, simply click on “Contact Supplier”.

What to write and what to expect

If you are contacting a supplier for the first time, you are interested in a few things: the way the item is packaged, the dimensions of one packaged item, the weight of one packaged item, the minimum order quantity (MOQ) and the price per item.

When writing your message, try to be polite. From experience, the majority of Chinese people that I ended up working with have been very professional, polite and understanding. Introduce yourself, your company, what you do and where you plan to sell. This creates a professional image of you and your company.

When I receive a message back from the supplier, I look for a couple of things:

1. English

First of all, if the supplier has bad English, it’s going to be hard to do business with them. Fortunately, many of the factories are decent in English.

2. Response speed

In one of my previous posts regarding how to choose a freight forwarder to ship your products to Amazon FBA, I wrote about how horrible it is when the communication sucks. Sending an email and having to wait for days to get a response back is something that I don’t tolerate for more than one shipment, and neither should you.

When it comes to finding manufacturers in China, it’s no different. If a supplier does not respond with 24 hours, then it most likely will be hard to work with them. All my suppliers reply instantly, as long as it isn’t nighttime in China. Sometimes they reply even at night, which proves further how willing they are to work with you.

Because there are so many factories to choose from, you get to be picky.

3. Content of the reply

In the response, I am interested to see my questions answered. Most of the time, I will see the answers and a few questions regarding the details of my request. This is good.

On rare occasions, however, they might reply with a message that has little to do with what I asked for. This is a red flag for me, as this means that they don’t really understand what I asked for.

Ordering samples

The last bit that I want to talk about in the context of how to find manufacturers in China and order private label products concerns ordering the samples.

But before you do order samples from your supplier, make sure you are able to discuss the possibility of making a test order. I can’t stress enough the importance of this.

Making a trial or test order means to order a smaller quantity of units (sometimes for an extra fee) that you would otherwise, usually below the MOQ of what the factory usually is ok with. This is done in order not to lose money in case the product does not do so good on the Amazon FBA platform.

In my post: Amazon FBA: The Mistake That Could Have Cost Me $3000, I talk about how I ordered a large number of units right from the start, although I knew that I shouldn’t have. Later on, I made a mistake that could have put all of those units to waste. Fortunately, it didn’t, but I had a very stressful month then. Had I ordered a smaller batch, I wouldn’t have been so afraid to lose all of those units, since the cost of them wouldn’t have been significant.

Nevertheless, if your supplier has accepted your request to make a trial order, it’s time to ask them for samples.

Ordering samples is the place where many new sellers make a mistake. They either order samples from only one supplier or they don’t order at all due to a high price.

Ordering samples is quite expensive since you have to pay for a fast delivery coming all the way from China. This is never cheap and is not the factory’s fault. Moreover, depending on the product, factories often offer the samples free of cost. It’s only the delivery that you pay for.

The price is what pushes some people to think that the samples aren’t that important or that it’s ok to order from only one supplier, but this is a very wrong approach.

First of all, you don’t know the quality of the product that you are planning to sell until you have held it in your hands. If you end up ordering and selling a crappy product to Amazon’s customers, you will lose money, gain poor feedback from buyers and possibly will be kicked off the platform. Don’t risk it.

Secondly, even the simplest products can vary greatly depending on which factory they are coming from. I have witnessed this many times. Therefore, make sure that you order samples from at least two different factories, ideally three or four.

Yes, ordering samples may be expensive and therefore feel sometimes like it’s a waste of money, but trust me, you would rather be safe than sorry. You order samples for a product only once, but that product will be making you money for as long as you want. That product has the potential to make or break your business. Don’t skip this step.

It’s important to understand that Amazon FBA can sustain you, which is why it is a real business and you should treat it like one. And when it comes to how to find manufacturers in China and order private label products, ordering samples is just as important of a step for the business as any other.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of how to find manufacturers in China and how to communicate with them. If you have any other questions, feel free to drop them down below. I will do my best to reply as soon as possible.

Thank you for stopping by and good luck!

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