You may have only heard of the Alibaba platform. It has millions of suppliers, it is difficult for you to tell whom to work with, and the transaction process is quite complicated.
And its MOQ(minimum order quantity) is too high for small and medium sellers. Therefore, in today’s article, I will introduce 8 methods that can be used to find Chinese suppliers online, not just Alibaba.
1. Find suppliers on Alibaba
Alibaba is known as the world’s largest B2B trading platform. The product categories there are so rich that you can almost find most of the products’ suppliers as you can imagine.
But here are few tips you need to pay attention to:
Gold Supplier doesn’t mean a good supplier. Since everyone can be a Gold Supplier after paying the annual fee of $ 4,000. Obviously, you cannot judge if the supplier is good or not by this.
Since Alibaba’s search ranking is most determined by the advertising costs, which is different from Google’s, the first ranking supplier might not always be a good one.
Besides, every supplier will have a MOQ(minimum order quantity) requirement, which may not be friendly to some small and medium-sized enterprises.
Also, buyers need to communicate and sign contracts with sellers before placing orders, most suppliers need to pay in advance, so there is no guarantee you’ll get the items you want.
2. From Global Sources and Made-in-China
These two websites have much higher standards and fees for member review. Therefore, the requirements for the strength of the supplier are higher. For the same reason, the chances of finding the factory also higher. If you need machinery or electronic products, I recommend you to go to Global Sources and Made in China.
In summary, if you want to develop your own brand products, it is more efficient to find suppliers on these two sites, and the suppliers are more professional. But one thing to note is that the MOQ of them is much higher than that of Alibaba.
3. From Aliexpress and DHgate
AliExpress
AliExpress and Alibaba are both under the Alibaba Group, but AliExpress is a retail website. It aims to enable Chinese factories and brand owners to directly face end customers all over the world.
Many Shopify owners and Amazon sellers like to start a dropshipping business through Aliexpress so that they can start their businesses at a very low cost.
But its logistics delivery time is very, very slow, and it may take 1 ~ 2 months to reach your customers. Therefore, if the customer cancels this order, you may lose the whole payment.
The advantage of AliExpress is that its price is cheap, and compared with Alibaba, its MOQ will be relatively low. Therefore, for small and medium-sized enterprises at the beginning, AliExpress is a good choice. If your clients can wait a little longer, it would be great.
DHgate
DHGate is between Alibaba and AliExpress. The MOQ of DHGate is lower than Alibaba, and its wholesale price is better than AliExpress. At the same time, DHGate also provides guaranteed refund and hosting protection for each order. So I think this website is very suitable for small business owners.
4. From Shopee and Lazada
Many small and medium-sized enterprises in Southeast Asia choose to find suppliers on Shopee and Lazada platforms.
The advantage is they are easy to operate. And many new buyers can choose a payment of cash on delivery, this greatly reduces the risk of customers.
The disadvantage is they charge a platform fee of nearly 10% for every transaction, so its price will not be too cheap. Secondly, each buyer’s account can only place 20 orders every day, and each order value can’t exceed 6000 pesos, If this limit is exceeded, cash on delivery payment cannot be used. Besides, Since most of the Chinese sellers on Shopee are small and medium-sized business owners, they are probably not professional enough in handling wholesale orders. They often only provide some logistics related to Shopee, such as air transportation.
However, air-ship, which is an expensive mode of transportation, cannot meet wholesale customers’ needs, especially when shipped the products with big volume and weight.
5. From 1688.com
This website is also owned by Alibaba Group, which faces Chinese merchants. There are many factory suppliers and trading companies on it. Its advantage is that the categories are rich, and the price is very cheap.
But for overseas sellers, since all pages are in Chinese, the language barriers will make it inconvenient to communicate with. Besides, its payment method only supports RMB(Chinese Yuan). Without Alipay, you can’t trade on it.
6. Cooperate with Sourcing Agent Company
These companies do not sell their own products; they are more focused on sourcing services.
They are stable and professional because have received good corporate training.
You can benefit from import services including sourcing, production monitoring, quality control, and shipping arrangements.
For those who need multiple categories of products from China, a sourcing agent is the best option. For example, if you need to buy 4 different products from China, you need to find suppliers for each product. Generally, you will compare at least five different sellers for each product in order to find the best option. So if you are dealing with 4 different products, you need to communicate with 20 or more suppliers.
Now imagine how many suppliers you will have to find and process if you sell dozens or hundreds of products?
7. Use Search Engine
Searching for Chinese suppliers through Google is also a good choice. Chinese suppliers often have commercial websites and social media.
Baidu
Most Chinese people use the Baidu search engine, you can use translation tools to find suppliers, combined with 1688.com, you may find more company details, such as whether they are involved in legal disputes.
8. From SNS
You can also search for Chinese suppliers on social media, the most common ones are Facebook, Linkedin etc. Many Chinese suppliers have social media, and they often share their news, products update, and services there. You can follow and contact them to learn more, and then decided whom to cooperate with.
In Conclusion:
Above 8 Methods are effective ways to find Chinese suppliers online from my experience
I hope this article will help you.
