We field a lot of questions about China sourcing and the management of the China supply chain, such as: How is it done? How hard is it? What are the pitfalls? etc. The best answers are provided by China sourcing specialists. To address some of these questions we thought we...
In August, 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported on a “$30 million Glass Pavilion [built as] a symbol of America’s ‘Glass City’” in 2006 in Toledo, Ohio. However, this monument, meant to celebrate the city’s great manufacturing past of quality glass, actually was built using glass sourced from China. The...
USA businesses that buy Chinese goods are adventurers. They go to the other side of the world to secure supplies of low-cost products for their customers. They brave all sorts of challenges ranging from quality (whether it meets their expectations), price (whether they really got the best price), cost of...
China sourcing alone is a complex concept even before you get to logistics. Then you realize that there are so many moving parts to the logistics steps alone. According to an article we recently read in The Economist, giants like Amazon can now offer shipping products within an hour in...
As China opened up its economy in the late 1980s, many western consumer goods manufacturers set up plants or formed joint or cooperative ventures in China in an attempt to capture the opportunities of this emerging huge supply chain. While the production process could easily be built on the existing...
The e-commerce age is in full swing thanks to the development of the Internet, which provides numerous options to source products, for a broader range of buyers. Alibaba is a platform where buyers and sellers from all over the world (but still predominantly from China) meet. It is one the...
According to the Shippabo platform, 79% of companies with optimized supply chains outpace their competitors. Sounds like it is worth optimizing, right? But what exactly does “optimized” mean? This blog will show you what an optimized supply chain entails to put you on the right track. Supply chain management is...
You often hear that “business is about people” and you know full well that having good people is the key to managing your China supply chain. The question is how do you find good people? How do you manage them? One tantalizing option that exists today but was not available only...