When looking for factories to work with in China, particularly in the south around cities like Guangzhou or Shenzhen, you’ll often run into large numbers of smaller factories. These may not sound ideal, however for many foreign buyers they present optimal business opportunities. With lower prices, acceptable quality, and greater...
Far too often there seem to be China buying stories where buyers fail to follow up on orders with the appropriate inspections, whether it’s the factory audit, pre-production, pre-shipment, or any other. We’ve discussed quite a bit on this blog about the importance of not taking a good relationship with...
As China’s economy has grown and wages increased, so have workers’ job expectations throughout the country. This has led to a much higher rate of job mobility, as Chinese are finding it easier to leave their jobs for better opportunities, either with more pay or closer to home. These days...
One of the most important factors with international purchasing is how to reduce costs, specifically shipping costs. When an order is less than a full container, an effective and relatively easy way to accomplish this is through LCL consolidation, which is the consolidation of orders that are “Less-than Container Load”....
These days it's not hard to find news predicting the end of China's manufacturing growth, marking the recent slowdown of China’s manufacturing and export industry, with reports showing that China manufacturing activity fell to a 32 month low in November 2011, slowed down by a slump in the global economy....
Yes, Christmas is upon us soon. And I am expecting my grown children and their friends to spend time at home with us in the USA at the end of December. So guess what I did to entertain myself this weekend? I assembled a knocked-down foosball table I just bought....