In our first post, we had postulated upon the problems of sourcing from China. Now, let’s talk about some of the solutions that we have to protect ourselves. The biggest thing we want to keep in mind is that the easiest way to avoid problems with Chinese suppliers is to avoid using them at all. It is very rare that a single product is going to make us or break us, so avoiding the issue entirely is by and far the safest thing to do to avoid and problems down the road.
However, if we are set on using that supplier and trying to secure that product, there are a few things that we can do to try and protect ourselves. The first main contender we have with effectively working with a Chinese supplier is getting past the logistic issue of shipping. There is the very real problem that we have to get a product halfway around the world. Our customers are going to be very impatient, and many will balk at having to pay more to wait longer. Our best recourse is to try and communicate with the supplier as to what their average shipping time and shipping costs are. They will typically be upfront about it, and it will serve a dual purpose in allowing us to see whether or not we can even speak with the supplier easily or not.
The second resource we can utilize in the great “authenticity wars” is a website called http://whatsitworthtoyou.com. This website is intended to allow us to research products and find out whether or not they are going to be legitimate or not. This is not a free resource, but for a price they will be able to help determine the authenticity of a product, which will allow you to know whether or not you can confidently and ethically sell the item on your site. Without handling the item itself, they cannot definitively and empirically make a statement on its authenticity, but we can very quickly and efficiently determine using this service if our source is legitimate. However, with a form from this site to verify that the site or product is, indeed, something that is not entirely questionable, it will allow us to list on eBay and our own site with much more confidence. It is not a bullet-proof vest to protect from any problem at all, but it is a great way to list without fear that your item is a clear counterfeit.
Our biggest concerns with Chinese suppliers will always be present; we can never be 100% sure that an item is not a counterfeit, that the shipping cost and time will not grow unreasonable, or that we’ll even be able to reach the supplier if there is a problem, but if we are very careful, it is not an impossible hope to be able to utilize Chinese suppliers. However, to quote an old food adage, “When in doubt, throw it out”: if we have good reason to think that our supplier is not legit, we are almost always going to be safer abandoning the product idea, and moving somewhere else.
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