Sourcing Company in China to Avoid Poor Quality Product

POSTED ON July 13, 2021

Over the years, Sourcing Company in China has made tremendous strides when it comes to improving the overall quality standards within the industry. To a large extent, Chinese manufacturers have succeeded in busting the myth that Chinese products are cheap and flimsy. Today, the whole world looks towards China for manufacturing even the most sophisticated products requiring compliance with the highest quality standards. However, when you are sourcing from another country, there is no fool-proof method of ensuring that you will receive the quality you expect. You may wonder what are your options if you receive poor-quality products from a Chinese supplier. Can you send the products back and get your money back? Can you get the replacements? When a buyer says that the products, they have received are poor quality it could mean a lot of things. It could mean that the product does not conform to the specifications provided by the buyer, the quality of raw materials used is poor, poor packaging, wrong quantity, broken/cracked/chipped products or poor finishing.

In some cases, the buyer may be able to rectify the problems at their end. However, if the products are not at all useable, you will have to think about your options. The best way to deal with quality issues is to catch the problems early on. This ensures that you don’t have to deal with quality problems once the shipment has already landed in your country. Ideally, quality problems such as be identified before the shipment leaves the factory so that the manufacturer fixes/replaces the products at their expense.

Once the shipment reaches your country and you find quality problems in that, the best-case scenario is that the manufacturer agrees to replace the product. However, the entire process will still cost you months because communication, re-production and shipment may take a long time. You lose precious time and potential sales. Moreover, the amount of stress it causes can be enormous. So, your best bet would be a third-party inspection before the shipment leaves factory premises. Your options actually depend on who your supplier was and whether you dealt directly with them or you had a middleman such as a sourcing agent in between. If you have sourced your products via an online platform such as Alibaba chances are that you are covered by trade assurance policy. This means, that in the event of a delay in product delivery or if the product does not meet the required specifications, you may be entitled to a refund.

If you have sourced your products directly from a Chinese manufacturer, then your course of action would depend on a lot of factors. These include how reputable the supplier is because an established and trusted supplier would not lose his customers or reputation due to quality issues. They will do their best to resolve the issue amicably. It also depends on whether it was a one-time order or you have a long-standing relationship with a supplier. No supplier would lose a long-term customer easily. They will work toward reaching a mutually agreeable solution. finding a sourcing company in china will benefit a lot.

Your worst-case scenario is that you make a one-time purchase from a lesser-known, small-time manufacturer and the products you receive are poor quality, you will find yourself in a murky situation. Your first effort should be to get in touch with the supplier, apprise them of the issue, apportion fault and then ask them to either offer a replacement or give a refund. If you are no longer able to contact the supplier or they do not agree to replace the products or offer a full/partial refund, you should see if you can go for litigation or arbitration.

Litigation

Before you consider litigation, there are points that you need to keep in mind:

  • Whether the claim is large enough to warrant a huge expenditure in terms of time, money and effort.
  • Whether or not there was a quality inspection report included with the shipment.
  • What is the kind of quality issue/defect?
  • Whether there is a written agreement in place and includes the quality specifications in detail.
  • Whether the supplier is a legally registered entity.

Moreover, you will have to litigate the case in China.  So, unless you can travel to China or you can have a legal sourcing company work for you in China, you really don’t have much of a choice.

It is important for everyone to note that one-off incidences should not discourage you from doing business in China. Businesses from across the world trust Chinese suppliers for new product development, sourcing customized products and for all their other product needs. It is in your best interest to hire the services of a professional and reliable China sourcing agent who can act as your representative in that country. A sourcing agent in China will take care of everything right from finding the supplier, to quality inspection and shipment.

Get in touch with our sourcing sourcing company in China, and they will guide you with your next steps.