Shanghai Lezon worked in China sourcing area for more than 20 years, more about us. We would like to introduce how to find the suppliers from China step by step. Not only from on-line resource but also off-line resources. And also we will introduce how to check the background the suppliers and start to communicate with them.

1. Be clear of your demand

   
   The first thing for China sourcing is “idenfy your demand”. A reasonable requirement will help you get the quotation from good suppliers, and competitive price. The vendors will feel you are professional and will to work together with you.
   
   Before you turn to China supplier, you should get a clear idea of what I want to buy. Therefore, the internal communication and market investigation would be the way to answer the questions. Just same as other sourcing or procurement activities, when you get the clear technical requirement, and the quantity, it is time to turn to China suppliers.
   
   
   It sounds easy, but not in practice. We met lots of strange requirements during our 20 years sourcing experienece. For an example, the quantity is too small that it would not be competitive to purchase from Chinese supplier directly. In some other case, the requirement is too strict that nobody can produce in China. On the other hand, if possible, you can learn some basic knowledge of production, such as batch size, raw materials and mould cost. You can discuss with some experts before you spend your time and money on China sourcing. Or you could contact us, we are familiar with many categories, so that we could tell you whether it is necessary to go further for your case. Meanwhile you could visit our page for China sourcing to have more ideas about China sourcing.

2. Find potential suppliers
   
   

   To find the potential suppliers from China, you need to have some tools and skills. We would like to introduce you several methods to find the right vendors for you.
   
   Many methods were introduced both on-line and off-line, such as alibaba, made in China, and also the exhibitions like canton fair. The potential suppliers pool would be too big to work on easily. So you would need lots of time to shorten the suppliers list and cannot guarantee the best suppliers in the list.
   
   First of all, we think industrial website and exhibitions would be more helpful than the common one. If you want to purchase chemicals, we suggest you to visit chemical website and also the exhibitions for chemicals only. On the other hand, the search engine Baidu dominated Chinese market, but the results are not quite ideal, you should try several key words (in Chinese) to find a reasonable result. Here is another good and in-time resource, industry report for the product if you are luck enough. Some free pages can be provided, then you are able to know the main players’ name. Try several methods, to make sure you get sufficient vendors pool for your next step work.

3. Check the background of your potential suppliers

   
   We would like to introduce several methods to check the background of the potential suppliers.
   
   
   Firstly, you can look through the supplier’s website. If they do not have one, you can check the video and picture on B2B website, like alibaba and made-in-China. It would give you some idea of how the supplier looks like, but maybe it is not the fact. We strongly suggest you to go for next step, if you are not 100% sure of the information you collected.
   
   Secondly, here are some third party websites to check the registration information, social security information as well as the legal issues for Chinese companies. But it will be blocked if the visitor IP is out of China, and the language is Chinese. If you have a sourcing office or partner in China, you could suggest them to use, the APPs are Aiqicha, Tianyancha and QCC.
   
   Thirdly, if you have customs data, you could check the export data of the potential vendors.

4. Evaluate your suppliers

   At this stage, you should already have some figures of your potential suppliers. When you have the shorten suppliers list, you can evaluate the suppliers.
   
   First of all, the capacity should be considered. Not only how big the supplier is, but also their supply ability. It is not a good choice. If you find a large manufacturer, but do not have the additional capacity to supply. Normally the figure of capacity is easy to get and verified, but how to know the real supply ability? We would discuss in another article.
   
   Secondly, the quality management. You can collect several documents in this stage, such as ISO, HACCP, GMP etc.
   
   Thirdly, the business management ability. You can collect the information of ownership, the export ratio, employee number, international sales team size. Those information are also important, because a professional partner can save lot of time and money.
   
   You can make a scorecard to rank your potential suppliers by yourself.

5. Contact with your potential vendors

   You have already got the potential suppliers list at this stage, and know something about them. But will they reply your question and give you the quotation? Not certainly. Except for the background of your company and business itself, the communication skills are also very important.
   
   First of all, you should make sure you get the right contact person and contact method. If you find the potential suppliers from industrial reports, or industrial website. Perhaps you could only get a website, a public e-mail and telephone No. of the company. Without considering the language, we suggest you to call the vendor first by telephone. Here are several advantages of the first communication on telephone, such as getting the feedback immediately, finding the right person, more information, first impression etc. On other occasions, such as an exhibition, you should have already meet somebody from your vendor.
   
   Secondly, the communication content. After the first contact by telephone, we suggest you to write a formal e-mail. It is necessary to share the backgoung of your inquiry, requirements and quantity (per shipment and annual). By the way, kindly to make sure your vendor recieved your e-mail properly.
   
   Thirdly, if you could not get a feedback, or a proper quotation, we suggest you to make a phone call again. Perhaps, it is because the vendor have some technical or commerical reasons. You can see whether you can provide them a solutions.
   
   

6. Finally

   It could be difficult to find a solution for all the business, we hope our common method can help you to find your unique method for your business. You could visit our China sourcing for more of our philosophy and methodolgy of how to find the suppliers from China. Furthermore, if you have any question, please feel free to contact us.