When we start a bag procurement work from China, low price and reliable manufacturer are the most key issues you need to consider. No matter which business you are in, private label, wholesale, retail, distribution or an importer. Keep a low price and then you can obtain sufficient profits in the bag business, and at same time, a reliable suppliers determine whether your business can continue to develop. Unsuitable suppliers will wears out your patience and adds to your extra work, that will make you cann't focus on sales work.
However, cooperating with Chinese bag suppliers is not a simple matter. We need to familiar with the basic cooperation process and confirm the work and risks that both parties need to complete in each step.
In this guide, we're going to break down the essential parts of a complete wholesa bag work and look at the key differences with local manufacturer. Specifically, we'll look at:
- Difference between China bag manufacturer and local bag manufacturer.
- A 5-step wholesale bag guideline from China manufacturer.
When you're comparing China bag manufacturer VS. local bag manufacturer, the big difference is that the work process. It's important to recognize that the way professional services and bag products are purchase is, in most cases, very different to local purchase.
This means the way you cooperate China bag manufacturer is going to differ from a local buy. There are several unique challenges that face, to summarize the key differences:
Using English, for most of the Chinese manufacturer you communicate with, their degree will not be lower than a bachelor's degree, so written English is the best choice, I have almost never encountered suppliers who can't handle language problems, if your mother language is not English, then written English is your best choice. Of course slow down when you speak on the phone, it need to know is Chinese people are more reserved and less assertive than Americans, and they won't ask you to repeat yourself, they think it is impolite or that it reflects badly on them. This “face saving” behavior is common.
Due to international trade, you cannot pay the order amount of the bag in local currency. The US dollar and the euro are the most common currencies. For most Chinese bag manufacturer, the US dollar accounts for more than 90%.
"What is the best way to pay my Chinese supplier?” That isn’t really simple as each payment method has its pros and cons, and a lot also depends on the size of your order.
Common payment methods have:
1. International Wire Transfers(or call Telegraphic Transfer, T/T)
2. Letters of credit(L/C)
3. Credit Card
4. Western Union
5. PayPal
6. Escrow
For orders of several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.
International Wire Transfers(T/T) for more than 60% of international trade, especially after buyers and sellers are familiar with each other and trust each other more. The reason is that compared with other payment methods, T/T is the fastest payment method with the lowest handling fee. For most banks payment, buyers and sellers only need to pay about $10-30 in fees.
L/C is generally suitable for large-amount orders. For some bag custom order, it is generally used for orders exceeding US$50,000. And also there have some countries or regions, due to foreign exchange limit, goverment force buyer to choose L/C as the payment method, L/C is the most complicated and most expensive payment method in international trade, but it can effectively convert business-to-business risks into bank-to-bank risks, so it is also known as the safest payment method in international trade.
Compared with T/T and L/C, Credit Card,Western Union,PayPal,Escrow are generally used for small amount of payment, which is usually a few dollars to several hundred dollars, and some people are used for orders over 1000 dollars, but it is relatively rare, because this kind of payment buyer and seller usually will be charged according to 2%-5% of the payment amount, so if you are more than 1,000 US dollars, then both parties are not happy.
But these four payment methods all have an advantage, that is, it usually takes no more than ten minutes to complete the payment, so it is very useful for samples and small-amount orders.
Delivery time is a challenge now. before 2020, the normal custom production time for 1,500 pcs bag was about 15 days, which included the procurement of bag raw materials, the normal production of bag, and the bag inspection and packaging time, as well as normal order queuing time. The main factor affecting the delivery time at present is transportation, especially the current world is under the influence of covid-19, orders from all over the world are concentrated in China, which has brought great pressure to China's export ports,like shanghai port, ningbo port, and shenzhen port. From the Feb,2020, China has implemented strict epidemic prevention policies. which disrupted the normal production rhythm of China bag manufacturers.
Different from local procurement, you need to deal with the customs department of your country when purchasing from China. After the goods arrive at the designated port, we generally need to submit some documents to the customs:
1. Commercial Invoice
2. Packing information
This is a document that must be submitted when paying customs duties, for those countries that have signed special agreements with China, you also need to get a certificate of original country from the Chinese bag supplier, so that you can get preferential tax rates during the customs clearance process, such as countries that have joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and countries that have signed RCEP agreements with China.
And if you are purchasing bag from China for the first time, you can entrust your Chinese bag supplier to deal with whole customs process. You pay the cost, and the Chinese bag supplier provides door-to-door service. You don't need to deal with any problems throughout the process, only need to wait the truck of goods arrives on yuur warehouse or home.
If you have someone you know who is engaged in the freight forwarding business, you can ask him to handle these imports process. Usually, they will know more about some local policy than Chinese suppliers, and even people they know at customs can help deal with various thorny matters.
The process of ordering a custom bag is actually not complicated. For buyers, the main work content is to confirm the order details and payment.
To help a new customer put together a solid strategy for your bag, here's weihan set a 5-step customs bag process that you can follow (adapting as necessary) to make job well done, blow away the competition on purchase cost.
Bag is a developed and mature market product. Although many popular styles appear every year, most of the customization behaviors are based on the basic bag models, and for most customization behaviors are adding your logo or change the bag color.
The first step is you need to find the bag style you need from our bag catalog, or send the bag photo you found in other peers or markets.
There are so many styles of bags on market, more than 17 years of production have allowed weihan to accumulate more than thousands of bag models. We can't show all of the thousands models details on catalog, but as long as the kinds of the bag are confirmed, Weihan can complete the production of more than 95% of the bags on the market. What you need to do is to explain to weihan the customized details that you want to achive, At this point, photos and videos are effective means, a photo and the dimensions of the bag are enough, weihan can start working for you.
Confirming the bag appearance and function is the first step in the work, this can be a photo of the product or your design.
Based on sufficient product information communication between both parties, weihan will make the quote. As one of the leading manufacturer in China, Our production department will complete the quotation of the product within 24 hours and feedback it to you. If it is a working day, generally within 6 hours, you can receive the quotation. Whether it is dozens of trial orders, or thousands to tens of thousands of normal orders.
If buyer are satisfied with weihan's quotation, then we can confirm more order details at the same time, which usually include:
-Quantity of products in the order
-The production cycle of the order
-Payment terms and Processes
After the two parties confirm these details, they will usually be written into a contract or an invoice, which is both a promise and a right to both parties.
After both parties confirm the product and business details , the buyer can arrange payment to weihan, let the order move forward.
In most order, the payment term have four ways.
1. 100% payment when both parties confirm the contract or PI
2. 30% deposit when both parties confirm the contract or PI. 70% balance paid before shipping.
3. 70% deposit when both parti confirm the contract or PI. 30% balance agasit the copy of bill lading.
4. 30% deposit when both parti confirm the contract or PI. 50% balance paid before shipping, the left 20% balance paid when bag goods arrived the destination.
2 and 3 are the most common payment term, and 1 and 4 are mostly applicable when customers and weihan are familiar with and trust each other.
Generally the delivery time starts counting when weihan receives the payment.
The production of the order is officially started, when first payment completed.
For large quantities of bag orders, we generally need samples to make both parties to make a product confirmation to prevent misunderstandings in communication resulting in wrong product styles and avoid greater economic losses.
Once the bag sample is confirmed, then this sample will serve as the agreed standard of both parties on product details and quality.
After the sample is confirmed, bag mass production will be started. Ordinary bag product ordering is generally completed within 7-15 days. The large bag order cycle may be extended to 20-30 days, and the product order of more than 10,000 pieces may be further extended. It mainly depends on the preparation of the raw materials.
When all the bags are completed, Weihan will carry out an internal quality inspection. In some complex orderm, the inspection may run through every step of production, from raw materials to final products. A further inspection comes from the buyer arranging for a third-party inspection, which typically inspection items includes:
-Workmanship
-Quantity details
-Package/labables/logo/measures
-Detailed testing
-Product photos and Testing
About the inspection standards, the most common is the sampling inspection method, and the most common standard is ANSI/ASQC Z1.4-2003 level: II.
Transportation is a complicated matter, which usually involves government customs and transportation companies in two countries. From the perspective of transportation means, the most important one is sea transportation, followed by air transportation and truck transportation. In the past ten years, truck transportation has also been Gradually rise.
Ocean freight is the most common transportation due to its low transportation cost. The transportation time to Japan and South Korea is 5 working days. From China to the United States, It takes 13 to 16 days to travel from a Chinese port to West America. If you arrive at Meidong Port, the time is about 25-28 days.
For Australia, the time is about the same as that of the United States, about 25-28 days.
More country details shipping time can read this article.
(How long to received my goods from China)
For both buyers and sellers(supplier), the buyer handles the customs matters in their own country, and the seller handles the bag customs matters in China.
Of course, all of these jobs can be handled by the freight forwards. It is worth noting that many buyers find that the shipping cost from the freight forwarder they find will be lower than quoted by the supplier. This is because the freight forwarder designated by the buyer will generally pass on part of the cost to the seller, so that the seller will bear an additional part of the transportation cost. Your supplier may refuse the delivery because of this, or ask you to take on this part of the cost.
After ocean ship leave China port, we will send you bill lading. After the bags arrive at the destination port, you can ask your local freight forwarder to pick up the bags with this document, usually, you need to pay customs duties before picking up the goods. If there is a trade agreement between your country and China, you can get customs exemption with the certificate of origin.
Your agent will send bag to your warehouse by local transportation (usually truck or courier) after processing these procedure, and a complete international trade will end here.
When your get the bags, you can check the integrity and quantity of the goods, in addition to EXW and FOB trade terms, Weihan will buy transportation insurance for each customer's order, if your goods are damaged in transit, the insurance company will pay for your loss , if there is a problem with the quantity or quality of the bag, after checking and confirming, Weihan will compensate you for the loss, or we remade the same quantity of bag in the next order, all free.
