FISBIZ www.fisbiz.com (http://www.fisbiz.com/), the dedicated Chinese company serving foreign SMEs who are sourcing and manufacturing in China, has given 5 advices to foreign buyers on how to control ther Chinese suppliers' behavior effectively.

1. Find a supplier who will value your business
Your orders might seem insignificant to large factories, as big suppliers often require high level MOQ and ask for high prices, and these are born-to-be barriers for buyers who are still in small and medium sizes. So try to find a smaller manufacturer. Benefits from a smaller manufacturer are obvious: negotiable prices, flexible production and most importantly, the top management will keep an eye on your orders.
China is a huge supplying market, so if the buyer selects carefully and conducts proper controls, profits and potentiality will be huge to buy from small/medium sized suppliers.

2. Be a “good customer”
If you want the supplier to act faithfully – to offer you good price, keep nice quality and always ship in time, you have to first of all let the supplier think you as a “good customer”. Here are our advises how to act as a “good customer”.
- Stay professional, serious and promised. Suppliers usually value customers who look like serious and promised on their sourcing activities. So as a buyer, you have to not only understand the product you are going to buy, but also have clear requirements on quality control, production organization and shipment control, etc. Moreover, if you can give the supplier a steady time table of your sourcing plan and always place orders according to the time table, the supplier will surely value you as the best and most steady customer they want to cooperate with.
- Make your orders look more appealing. Low quality often comes from low cost- although no one likes to produce rubbish, many factories do have to use downgrade materials to produce poor quality products cause they need to cut down the cost and save money to survive. And if you claim too much on the poor quality, the supplier may even refuse to give you good supports any more. So it is never a good idea to drive the supplier’s profit to zero.
- Keep frequent communications and friendly relationships with your suppliers. In traditional Chinese culture, private/personal relationship is super important in business activities. A good personal relationship with the management and with the responsible person will bring you unexpected benefits. If your Chinese supplier take you as a trustful partner and friend, they may even without any hesitation be willing to bear some loss to help you on special or urgent matters- this is a magic business culture in China which buyers had better to understand.

3. Know the supplier before you cooperate with them; and know the quality before you pay them money!
Nearly everyone knows that in China there are many scammers, and even a real factory or a B2B website Golden member may cheat their customers. We have received countless requests from foreign buyer asking for help to get their money back after they are cheated by fraud Chinese suppliers. However, the reality is: it is impossible at all to get back any money if you are already cheated. So make sure for 100% to know what is really going on with your potential or existing supplier. Here are typical and useful measures to know the real situation and quality of your suppliers and products:
- Appoint a trustful agent in China who can help you to visit and check suppliers, inspect production frequently, and check products before payment or before shipment. At FISBIZ this is what we are doing everyday for foreign buyers. You need not to spend huge amount of money to conduct an simple inspection from SGS, BV or other big inspection companies. FISBIZ is very experienced in supplier and quality control, so you rely on our dedicated people to assure your business in much better tailor-made measures.
- Visit your supplier at least twice a year by yourselves. This is the most effective way to see and know what is going on with your suppliers. Nowadays travel to China is very easy- you just need to get VISA and airplane ticket ready for China, and let FISBIZ do anything else left in China. We provide business trip assistances including language translation and conference interpretation, transportation and accommodation arrangement, etc., -make you feel to travel like in your own homeland.

4. Hold some payment if you need to pay in advance.
If you owe a Chinese supplier money, then congratulations you are really getting the initiative in hands. During the early stage of cooperation, it is always hard to ask the supplier to accept payment after goods arrived. Moreover, there are many circumstances where Letter of Credit is not applicable. If the suppliers asks you to make payment by T/T wire remittance in advance and if it is reasonable, try to negotiate with the supplier to hold a part of payment until you receive the goods and confirm it.

5. Do not trust completely on contracts and stop take everything for granted.
Westerners usually think a legally-binding contract or a formal agreement is the best way to control their partners in business activities. However, contracts or agreements are nothing if a Chinese supplier means to breach it. In most cases Chinese authorities do not recognize stamps on foreign trade documentations are legally effective, and that makes it impossible to institute an international lawsuit. So the only trustful way to assure your business is to control the supplier tightly from the beginning till the last.

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