China Quality Control Services In COVID 2020!
I have not talked about the massive elephant in the room in 2020. That being the ol’Rona- Oh Coronavirus, will you go away now? China quality control services in COVID 2020.
Its no secret, coronavirus sure is dragging on a bit now.
But what has it done to Chinese manufacturing?
Much like the rest of the world, its effected it. You knew this by the fact that suppliers were changing their payment terms. I phone manufacturers pivoted and were making masks overnight. Those that didn’t are starting to feel the pinch.
Going from a 30% deposit to 50% and higher. There has been no stranger time in the modern history of the world.
But don’t let this put you off.
Sure there are many many factories out there which will fail.
But the opportunity to take advantage of this is now.
Online sales have skyrocketed, with it only to improve in Q4 2020. If you want to get on the bandwagon while it’s still here, then the time is now.
Capitalise upon the Chinese manufacturing plants that have spare capacity and cheaper cost.
Visiting China
Its no secret, the visiting rights, like any quarantined person will tell you, have been severely reduced. But the deals are still there. And there has never been a better time to invest in your product than now.
How to get there though?
We speak about this quite often in our manufacturing and sourcing blogs.
It’s no secret what I am about to say, but you need someone on your side on the ground in China. That’s where we can and do help.
Initial Factory Visits In China
- When to conduct an initial Factory visit in China?
- What questions to ask?
- What to look for when inspecting initial suppliers?
- What quality checks to look for?
Factory visits sound simple in principle, however in practice can be a logistical nightmare. Victoria, our Senior Purchasing Manager has been sourcing, implementing QC best practices and working with Chinese suppliers for the past 15 years. She offers her insights below:
When Should I Arrange A Visit?
When dealing with Chinese factories, it’s important to remember to engage the best business practice. Ensure that you use George’s blog post on dealing with Chinese suppliers HERE it holds some good perceptions of Chinese culture and how you should approach the Chinese factory visit.
When would I advise a factory visit?
In the past I have advised customers that factory visits should be conducted immediately after visiting trade fairs or visiting trade markets (such as the major market at YiWu), to ensure that you are indeed dealing with the factory itself.
We would work with potential customers and plan several supplier visits in a period based upon their locations. Knowledge of country geography is important here. There are also areas of expertise too, knowing which area offers more factory specialities is also an important factor to understand when planning initial go look-see visits.
Middlemen Vs. Direct
China is one big factory; it has equal amounts of middlemen too. Visiting the factory is always the starting point that I would recommend. It allows you to cut through the salesman talk and get straight to the point.
It’s very important that, at this point, you have someone there doing the translation for you, on your team. It could be that the middleman is just re-hashing the information from the factory and translating it straight to you. They will also re-hash all the quotations for you too. Meaning that you may not gain the best bang for your buck.
Language
In all honesty, the language barrier should not be that much of an issue with any of the initial correspondence with factories. They usually have (at most trade fairs) English speaking salesmen and women. It’s the intricacies of the deals and the fine details that can be lost in translation.
Visits, should not be reserved solely for the initial visit, it has been known in the past; for contracts to change hands, only to find that the entire factory has disappeared, along with the initial payment for products.
You would be amazed at some of the horror stories that I have heard. Factory visits should be conducted at each major milestone, to ensure that progress, quality and planning are all on target.
This, of course, can be very tedious management of time if you are remotely trying to manage the situation. Feet on the ground are often a necessity.
This is where we can help.
We have teams on the ground in China that can visit your facility and audit to get a real understanding of what is going on.
If you want to learn more please get in touch with us with the form below. Or add us on Linked in HERE.
