Welcome to the official Union Source Blog! Today we are going to talk about suppliers on Alibaba.
For lots of Amazon sellers, Alibaba is an amazing website. You can not only find numerous suppliers that sell various products but are also able to customize your product by adding a logo, having a specific type of packaging, having your product be a specific color， color, size, etc. But, all things have two sides. There are some good suppliers but sly suppliers on Alibaba, too. So the big problem you are facing is: How to choose reliable suppliers on Alibaba? Now we are going to teach you how.
There are 3 steps you need to follow:
Step 1, directly search the product and then sort by supplier types.
Step 2, check the supplier’s basic information such as the length of time they have been on Alibaba.
Step 3, check the product details and the company background.
In this process, there are lots of details and knowledge you need to know.
Now I’m going to show you how, If you happen to have your laptop around, you can try to operate with me.
Before we get started, make sure you have registered an Alibaba account. Here is an example. Say if I’m looking for tumblers, just type “tumbler” in the search bar. And hit it.
As you can see on the left, there are some other options that can help us narrow the range down.
Supplier type —This is one is a big help, it can help us find more
reliable suppliers. There are three options for us to choose:
trade assurance, verified supplier, and less than 1 hour response time. Let’s start with the first one.
Trade Assurance is a free service offered by Alibaba, Trade Assurance covers you if the products you ordered do not ship on time and if the product you receive does not meet the specifications or quality standards. If this happens, Alibaba will give you a full refund.
Next one: verified supplier.
I believe lots of you guys must know that there are different supplier memberships on Alibaba. Gold supplier and verified supplier.，then what’s the difference?
This page shows us, as a verified Supplier, a supplier’s company profile, production capabilities, products, and process controls have to be inspected, assessed, and verified by independent third-party institutions to assure reputable and consistent expertise on Alibaba. It means verified suppliers must pass more assessments than the gold supplier. Click! The reason mentioned this is the interface you looking at is the new version, just in case some of you guys are using the old version, there is more option—gold supplier.
Let’s continue. The response time does not that matter, since the time difference, and suppliers usually receive tons of junk messages every day. So suppliers might not reply to you within 1 hour. I just leave the boxes there.
And of course, there are some product types for you to choose from. We can see so many products are listed on the page. The basic supplier information you need to pay attention to is their registration time of them on Alibaba. I suggest you always choose those over 3 years, because, those less than 3 years are usually small companies or factories just getting their business started and not stable.
More detailed information. We got pictures, prices, more specific information about the product, and the way we get in touch with suppliers. There’s more. Product details, verified information, and company profile.
These two sections you need to spend more time on.
First, the Product Description, All the details you can get here. I know lots of people care about MOQ, but don’t worry. Price and MOQ are both negotiable. Don’t forget to check their product certificates. And you must know what certificates are obliged to the product.
The company cert is different from the product cert. Any company can have a product cert by asking for help from a third company. However, not all companies can have a company cert, especially ISO 9000 which is a cert certifies a company’s quality system. ISO 14000, a certification, certifies a company’s environmental system.
So if a company has both these two, that would be really nice.
If you think the supplier is good, you can click contact supplier and send your inquiry. Or use this window to talk to them.
If you find it helpful, leave a like or you have any questions about how to import from China, let us know, we will help you.
