Canton Fair is around the corner and you might have received an invitation from the organizer recently.
However, is it really worth spending money and time on this trip year after year?
Well, the answer differs. Before making the decision, you need to think over 4 questions.
Question 1: Are you looking for new idea or considering to cut costs?
Pros: Canton Fair is an absolute goldmine for importers looking for new product ideas.
Many suppliers use it as an opportunity to launch their new products and if you are someone who is on the lookout for new exciting products within your niche or across industries, Canton Fair is a great place to be to get an early mover advantage. In those booths you can not only see various new products, but also feel the quality of them.
- However, you need to be careful because the production lot’s quality is usually not as good as how you feel on-site. Just imagine, who will bring bad quality samples to attract clients?
Many of our clients come across the situation when sample and batch goods looked like two completely different products in the end. We have helped them avoid the pitfall by our QC solutions: Sample Check, During Production Inspection and Pre-shipment Inspection. Please refer to our homepage (www.v-trust.com) to know more about our services.
Cons: If you have already been importing a specific product from China and the purpose is to meet new suppliers in order to cut costs, then Canton Fair is not the best avenue to reach this goal.
It’s true that all the suppliers are lined in a row or in the same area, which makes them unable to offer high price. However, a very large percentage of booths at the Canton Fair are manned by trading companies or large manufacturers (with marketing budgets) and the pricing, on the contrary to what you thought, tends to be higher.
As a matter of fact, only those large-scale manufacturers or companies with high export revenue are qualified to attend the Canton Fair. If they don’t plan to attend the fair, they will sell their booths to whoever wants it.
- Another secret you don’t know is that no one verifies who is actually occupying the booth, this situation can easily lead to possible scam. We often hear from our clients that some suppliers just disappear after getting their deposit.
But don’t worry. These scam companies can be identified before you are in a trap. In V-Trust we have a solution which focuses on checking supplier’s profile – Factory Audit.
A Factory Audit can uncover problems before production so you have an exact understanding of your supplier’s capabilities, systems, management and operation procedures. This is a high level of quality control and will enable you to select a qualified supplier with confidence.
Generally, we will focus on the following aspects when doing a Factory Audit.
- Factory profile
- Human resource
- Foreign trade capacity
- Production capability
- Quality control system
- R&D
- Special requirement from client
We will present the other 3 questions in the next article.
Source: IMEX Sourcing - http://www.thesourcingblog.com/is-it-worth-spending-money-on-a-trip-to-canton-fair/
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