Sorry for the long wait guys! I have been holding off writing part 5 of this years case study so I could include as much info as possible! So let’s dive right into it. This is what I have been doing with my case study product the last 2 months:

Inspection

Since I am working with a new supplier it is crucial for me to have a right tight quality control process going on. Besides that the product is also made out of 2 materials. One material I have never worked with before and I can easily get scammed with it.

Because of this I really need to have great quality control in place. I ALWAYS have my products inspected while they are still in the factory. Some people like to inspect the goods at home, but by this time it is already too late. If you find any defects you can’t send the whole shipment back to China and you won’t receive a refund.

I personally use Qima as my inspection company. They will send an inspector to the factory who will write up a very detailed report for me.

Even though there were some small defects, the production passed the inspection. Now I can pay the remaining 70% to my supplier and arrange a Freight Forwarder to ship my products!

Freight Forwarder

I use Freightos to pick a freight forwarder. The platform is extremely easy to use. I only have to enter my shipment info, and from which point to which point I would like to ship it. And Freightos will directly show me quotes from the best Freight Forwarders:

In this case I will pick the cheapest Freight forwarder. They will ship my product from Ningbo -> Amazon FBA warehouse for $1,225. This will be $1,23 per unit, which will be a little bit more than I had budget for (I forecasted $1). However, I am completely fine with this since I managed to save some cost by negotiating the purchase price down.

Investments so far

Samples: $90

Product cost: $5,000

Inspection: $309

Shipping cost: $1,225

Total: $6,624

Next up: Product Launch!