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...
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...
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...
Food, family, football, are all part of the Thanksgiving tradition. But the holiday means so much more than that. Think about it: it is one day reserved for the specific purpose of reminiscing about the positive things in life. We may take it for granted, but we should be mindful...
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...
