One of the most common sourcing questions we are faced with in this day and age is the question of quality control in China. When talking to importers about their sourcing programs, it is a common belief among them that sourcing from China may mean serious cuts in costs AND...
The de minimis loophole has been mentioned frequently in the media lately, and the Biden administration is about to make changes to it. This is an interesting topic. Do you know exactly what it means? In this article, I’ll outline what the terms mean, the origins of this loophole, and...
China is the fourth largest country in the world in size and the largest country in terms of population. It is also the second largest economy in the world – and growing. This makes China a very interesting nation in which to do business. However, interacting is not always easy,...
This is a tough topic to tackle. Most of us would like to think that Chinese suppliers are nice and honest, they just focus on making a living, the best they can. We don’t want to even think that some of them can be dishonest, and worse, that some of...
This past August, I attended ASD Market Week in Las Vegas, a sprawling event offering buyers many wholesale retail products. Amid the buzz of closing deals for low-cost goods and gadgets, one trend stood out to me: the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the importing process. AI was...
Lately, negative feelings about doing business with China have noticeably increased. We note this is happening not just here in the USA, but in many other places in the world including Europe, Australia, South America and South East Asian countries like Malaysia. The reason this has developed this way goes...
As we wrote in “Made in China” – Quality and Perception: Intro, China has been known as a source for cheap goods with questionable quality for years. In this blog series, we’ll be exploring how China Direct Buying and other factors contributed to this reputation and what technological and economic...
Transport cost and time remain the main determinants for businesses and wholesalers to decide their sourcing locations. At first, it seems that there are many different costs, procedures, and variables to think about when deciding whether to source from China. We hope to share some advice based on our experience...