As a Foreign Trader in China

China, as one of the most important industry production bases,it supplies goods worldwide, there is a saying: for every 10 pair of shoes,there is one made in Dongguan city. But we should never take pride in such situation. What we get is slender process cost.world economy crisis won’t change the situation of being a leading manufacturer base for China in despite of suffer a strong impact in exporting.
Let’s get down to the business.Most of foreign trader in China, daily work is email,email and email. I am not exaggerating, I visited many factories and companies, what I saw is all employees sit in front of a computer, keep clicking mouse, searching,copy, paste, on and on, their slogan is: Persisted is the victory! Actually, I am same with others, the differences is I am trying to write down what I saw and let others know what the world like, although I am not good at English. Actually my Chinese is much better than English.

I asked one of my friends once, what will happen if without a computer for one day? "time will stop", he answered.

Ok, how to move on our foreign business in China? there is 3 ways,generally speaking.first,B2B, as you may know, there are many B2B plantforms,electronic industry,machine industry, lighting industry, home facility industry, chemical industry etc. And if you wanna do business with foreigners, you should be a paid member first, because paid member will get more purview than unpaid one. For example, some unpaid member are forbidden to unload pictures.this is very important. Always, you will pay 18,000~20,000 USD if you try to be a member of some super B2B, such as Globalsources,Made in China, Alibaba.

It’s a not too much for most big companies, but for some other small companies, it’s really something.they wanna get reward once they paid money. OK, what’s next? there are thousands of suppliers appeared in B2B,Silver key members,Golden key members, top members, supply all kinds of goods. This is, maybe a good news for buyers,but for sellers, it’s a different way. Take LED industry as a example(I am in this industry), there are hundreds of LED products suppliers in China,even in Shenzhen city.most of our products is the same,LED displays, LED lighting. Of course, for some leader companies, their products is different not only in quality but also in price. But not all buyers looking for super quality products with high price. For most buyers what their want is find a balance between quality and price. This, do provide a opportunity for other suppliers.

I did a test once.i pretended to be a foreign buyer (this is not integrity, just a test), I left a inquiry that I am interested in LED products in a famous B2B, after six hours, I got 57 emails from 54 suppliers from China,1 suppliers from Korea, and 1 from Hongkong. So fierce competition for suppliers,and for buyers,it’s confusable.it’s hard to mke a choose.

And the worst situation for suppliers is we always involved in price war, because there is no price and specification standard released by any industry associations here. He laughs best who laughs last. Don’t think it’s a good news for buyers. Nothing for nothing and very little for a half penny, no suppliers will do business lose money. If they get an order with a very low price, they will try to save the cost, what they usually do is changing the material,such as IC, power supplier, marsk,etc products is different. Buyers believe they get something with low price,but they don’t know they also get something new.i met some wise buyers, the bargain with you, but keep a suitable price, they do know what will happen if the price turned to be too low.

Another way to move on international trade is Exhibition.it’s a good opportunity for buyers and sellers join a face to face discussion.world become a smaller and smaller village day by day. The purpose of exhibition is to get buyers and sellers in the same industry together. This campaign extremely promote probability for suppliers to get orders. And exhibition also considered to be the most efficient way to get overseas orders by now.

By using free internet sources is the third way to move on our business. Search engines (Google, yahoo, yandex,live), yellow page, free B2B,associations, etc. So many ways to find the "potential" customers.it’s only "potential", please noted. Because what you find maybe is only the same industry with you, they are not actually buyers, and if they get a purchase plan, they will find a supplier forwardly, not only stay at home waiting. I did a investigation on "where will you find a you suppliers once you get a purchase plan" in 50 foreign buyers. 40% choose use good search engine, 46% choose B2B, other 14% choose use other ways. It’s hard to get actual deals by using free sources.

For most employees in China, like me, just sitting in front of the computers, search, copy, paste, email, collecting.some people stick, some quit. For those people who moving on, they will get lots of information one day.