White Collar Pirates Patroling the Pacific
This is another episode of the adventures of sourcing overseas. This time, it’s all about logistics – ocean freight, to be exact. There is already enough pitfalls and dangers to watch out for with the physical sourcing to foreign factories, now add nuisance from the logistics companies. Don’t forget, overseas sourcing is 50% sourcing and […]
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Alibaba Offline – Yiwu International Trade City (义乌国际商贸城)
Many of you have seem me criticize Alibaba – while a good source for starters, definitely not a dependable or long term channel for serious sourcing strategies. Today, I’d like to introduce a variant of Alibaba.com. Unlike its cyber counterpart, this is a real place. A destination in China that you can physically visit. A […]
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Brief Intro of Our Services within China
Following is an exchange of emails between me a potential partner in crime. I thought about our earlier communication in regard to the Volvo Fulfillment & Mailing you quoted for Zetweka last year. You said that Beaconstar is able to do a lot of different products through partner companies in China and Indonesia. Can you […]
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Overseas Sourcing & International Shipping
A customer recently asked why we are marking up on shipping related charges. This is at least the second episode with the same customer that resisted on sending the order in due to shipping. The previous epis0de can be found here. In the field of printing, especially when it pertains to flexible packaging, it took […]
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Overseas Sourcing Psychosis
A sales staff recently asked doing a repeat order on a big presentation book that we have done last year. Customer needs another one for his upcoming book release. While this is not something out of ordinary, this big presentation book did cause quite a bit of stir last year when we did it. The […]
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Using your own freight forwarder…? Why that may not work out as you’d expected…
Following is a reply letter to a customer who’s entertaining the possibility of doing the importing on his own. Due to the relatively longer turn-around time involved in overseas sourcing, he’s planning to fly in a portion of the products in order to meet his own deadlines while leaving the majority to ocean freight. He’s […]
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Alibaba and the Forty Thieves – 11 Recommendations about Buying Directly from China
This popular childhood fable is no longer imaginary. The mention of “alibaba.com” makes most Americans think it’s the primary gateway factory portal. To buy anything direct, alibaba.com is the one destination. But if you work in China, alibaba.com is probably the last destination you’ll ever visit. Sure, there are still good information on the site, […]
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Export Delays in China in May, 2013. Anybody?
For the decade plus years I’ve been exporting out of China, mind you, I also have my own Chinese company managing the export (with the export license), I’ve been experiencing a consistent chain of delays on almost all shipments for the early month of May, 2013. This is annoying… Not to mention furious customers who […]
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Why Pay for Overruns?
A response to a customer regarding the option of buying overruns. Customer feels that he always get free overruns from others, why is it we are charging them for overs. ##### It is actually very customary to charge for overruns and discount for unders here in the U.S. and other places. You have the “option” […]
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Corruption at the Customs
As part of my work in overseas sourcing, I’ve had many calls to ship stuff to international destinations. My recent round of shipment that got stuck at some third-world country is especially worth mentioning. This doesn’t happen for shipments originating from most western countries (i.e. the U.S.), but stuff like this happens quite often when […]
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