In January I made a prediction on what would happen in March, namely: “… it will get better, … the new 25% tariffs will not be imposed and … previous tariffs will be reduced over time.” Time for me to eat humble pie. Here we are in June, and after...
In the last blog installment we published of this series, Made In China Quality and Perception: Improving Standards and Improving Quality – Part 4, discussed the recovery China made after dealing with major quality scandals and recalls between 2007 and 2008. This week, we continue the series and will examine...
The impending tariffs and the trade war with China have been an ongoing and popular topic in the press, and an especially important issue in our business. One of the benefits of this kind of activity is that importers are focused on reducing COGS (Cost of goods sold). A recent...
China has gone through some major economic changes in the last 2 decades. Some of which probably affected how you buy and what you buy in China. In a recent article from Stansberry Pacific Research’s Asia Wealth Investment Daily, we found a great review of some of these changes. Worth...
Four weeks ago, I shared with youMichael De Clercq’s blog about his predictions on a positiveoutcome of the additional tariffswith China. As you know, President Trump originally set a deadline of March 1st. We are now at that deadline and,a few days ago, we all learned that hepostponed this deadline...
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...
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...
We have written about the Chinese New Year (CNY), a.k.a. Spring Festival, every year for the last few years and how it can affect our China sourcing operation. As usual, a wave of closures and delays will hit importers everywhere. So, how do you prepare for this every year? Know...