Purchaser’s Guide When Doing Business in China
As an international trade attorney in China, I have tackled many case of international trade dispute. I think if buyer has advice before buying goods in China, then they can have successful business, if not, they will lose thoroughly.
- Losing a deposit instead of an entire order or payment.
Doing business with first client, you shall remember that it is very high risk. Although most suppliers are good, but if you do not pay attention, you will meet bad supplier. If you pay all money, and there is something wrong in this procedure. And you want the money back, it very difficult, sometimes it is impossible. And you want to sue them, give up this mind. The litigation fee and attorney fee will surpass the cargo payment. And if the case is wining, no one dare to say you will get back the money.
- Keep calm heart when meet difficult. If your goal is to get finished quality product, then do not go too far in your anger or demands. If you become very anger, it is not use, because you are not the government, supplier will not obey you, or they will not reply you only. Then find the real problem: Listen, ask, take notes and ask again.
- Keep detailed notes of every conversation. Then you can know the essence of the problems, where the question is. Sometimes the suppliers will tell you lie, making you do not see the true problems are. So having the notes of the talk, you can see every step of the dispute. In litigation in China, the most important evidence is email; you must keep the email correspondences, then knowing the fault of the suppliers.
- At end of a production can be especially risky.
With other orders waiting to be filled and your deadline is approaching, your supplier may: run out of approved materials and use a substandard substitute. Rushing through your final units to finish on time, and produce so much disqualify products. And at last, you will not sell these fake products easily. It will cause so many losses to your business.
- You production is complete, you should pay final payment.
Before your order is completed and packed, perform a pre-shipment inspection to ensure there will not be last-minute, nonconforming products on board. Let such people to inspect the goods before shipment. If you have office in China, then better, if the product is not conforming to the quality, then you can deny paying the rest payment, then reducing the risk to minimum. You cannot sell damaged or missing products.
- Last checking. Perform a container loading check to ensure cartons contain the proper quantity, size, assortment, etc. All products are packed safely and loaded carefully. The container is sealed against tampering. You should find qualified shipping company. They will cooperate with you. For the tracing your goods, knowing the condition of goods. And charging reasonable transportation price.
