Finding trusted supplier is crucial to the success of your trading business. And China has been the ideal place for a growing number of oversea companies or entrepreneurs to find suppliers for importing products. Here we will guide you to find China supplier in 4 uppermost steps: your website, Internet search, trade fairs and friend recommendation.
1, Creating a contact form on your company website.
This is the foremost step because by this potential China suppliers will find you directly, rather than you find suppliers. And meanwhile, surely much time and energy is saved, because sales from Chinese suppliers are constantly and eagerly searching for prospective customers via the internet. But most of you only use websites to show products and leave the emails of sales department for your customers to get in touch. Nevertheless, if your business is much based on partnership with suppliers, it’s no less important to add an easier and more efficient way for your potential suppliers to contact you.
And it’s definitely not good idea to simply put an email address of the purchasing department on the contact page. This would undoubtedly make your email be filled with spam. An excellent suggestion is to create a “become our supplier” contact form. The form should collect necessary supplier information including Name, Title, Company name, Country, Email address, Main products, Advantages , and one empty space to leave message.
2, Internet search via B2B marketplaces, search engines, and social media networks.
Once you get inquiries from suppliers via the contact form, you can check more info about them on Internet. And internet is the most cost-effective and commonly used way to find China supplier, as you can search through the internet every time and everywhere you want.
1) B2B websites like Alibaba, Global Sources, Made-in-China, etc.
These are three most popular B2B platforms for Chinese suppliers to expand global business. Alibaba is well-known over the world as one of the three internet giants (BAT-Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) in China. The majorities of suppliers in China sign up and pay at least about $5000 USD per year to list products in Alibaba. So it’s a great place for you to find China supplier directly. You can either find suppliers by searching and browsing categories or let suppliers find you by post RFQ. The website is user-friendly with guides to help you proceed and forums to ask questions, so no need to worry even if you are a beginner.
B2B websites are the quickest way to compare China suppliers, products and their prices. What you should keep in mind is that there may be frauds on any B2B platforms, so be careful before you sending payment.
2) Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
Google, Yahoo and Bing are the most popular search engines over the world. You all know how to search results by put in keyword of the product you are looking for. But if you only type in a keyword of the product you are looking for, then most probably the search results will be filled with the ads of B2B websites. So you should also learn more about how to narrow down and get more accurate results as you desired.
If you study the top B2B websites and the source code of the Meta tag(title, description, keywords) on these websites, you will find out their most frequently used words:
B2B, Marketplace, Leads, Platform, Directory, “Find Suppliers”, Find Manufacturers, Member, Buyers. Then add “-”(“logical negation” operation) ahead of the words, and also excludes some websites like: yellow pages, forums, online shops, organizations, etc. Then you can type in all the below:
-B2B -Marketplace -leads -platform -directory -“Find Suppliers” -“Find Manufacturers” -member -buyers -“yellow pages” -forum -online -shop -.edu -.gov -review
Of course, you should also type in keyword of the product and content you are looking for, such as: “headphone” “factory” “china” “China supplier”. And there are a lot other Google skills you should learn to get the more accurate result you want. Then study the websites from the searched result one by one.
3) Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.
You can establish your company pages on these networks so as to increase the exposure rate for your company. And social networks are excellent source for suppliers to find you though it’s not necessarily ideal platforms to find China supplier, as the majority of OEM factories in China do not have social network presence. But it would be a perfect place if you are looking for China brands instead, as there are a growing number of brands in China establish their official pages on social networks.
3, Attending professional trade fairs in China and other countries.
It maybe still hard for you to know in depth about the suppliers without meeting them face to face. Attending trade fairs regularly in your field is the most recommended step to find the ideal suppliers if you have sufficient funds. On trade fairs, you have the opportunity to talk to potential suppliers about their companies, products, production capacity, quality-control procedures, etc. Such direct interaction helps you to evaluate different suppliers and verify their capabilities.
Our suggestion is to attend professional trade fairs in certain field instead of in all the fields (comprehensive exhibition). If you are specialized in consumer electronics, more specifically headphones for example, recommended trade fairs are CES in Las Vegas, CeBIT in Hannover, Computex in Taipei, suppliers in consumer electronics field over the world and many of them from China gather here each year.
If you are planning to China, then two exhibitions in China are worth mentioning. One is the Canton Fair which is the largest exhibition being held every spring and autumn in Guangzhou. And for consumer electronics industry, you should not miss the Consumer Electronics Fair held by Global Sources in Asiaworld Expo and by HKTDC in Hongkong. And during the exhibitions, you can take a visit to the China supplier you’ve already contacted before to discuss further and verify their capability.
Almost all exhibitors speak English, so if you are interested in the products, you can take a photo of the products, and then sit down to talk more details. After the discussion, you can exchange name card with the exhibitor and take a catalogue away for further negotiation and contact.
4, Refer to your friends who do the trading business in the same industry.
This is the most important step! Because after the previous 3 steps, many of you may be lost in a a bunch of suppliers. If you have trustworthy friends already doing business in your country for the same products or in the same field, then suppliers recommended by these friends are reliable choices for you.
And if you do not have one, it’s highly suggested to be real friends with local Chinese people or agent, the international trade sales you are talking with can be a good choice. They can help you a lot in the process of finding China supplier, as the local people know how to choose the trusted supplier while many special business manners and hidden risks may be unknown to you. The process of finding suppliers will be much easier if you have a helpful local guide!
Keep in mind, never make decision before talking to the suppliers in depth and you feel they are trustworthy. Take the time to make contact with the suppliers you want to work with to discuss details, check their reliability and develop further relationship. Eventually, after you went through the above 4 steps, you will find the right China supplier and even a group of carefully-selected suppliers as your long-term business partners.
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