By Steven Chow

Despite rising costs in China, sourcing continues to be hot here - very hot - and I personally can attest to this.

Chinawhy.net, my company’s website, recently launched a Google AdWords campaign to promote our product sourcing service. AdWords works by creating ads and choosing keywords related to your business. When people search Google for those keywords, your ad may appear next to the search results.

We created our ad and chose our keywords, agreeing to pay US$1 per ad click. After all, paying a higher price per click is supposed to get your ad listed higher in ad results. But due to the popularity of China sourcing keywords, even with that high bid, we couldn’t make it into the first page of ad results.

Clearly, there are a lot of sourcing challenges out there. Many people are desperately in need of information, and that’s why it costs advertisers so much to reach them.

In this article, I’ll try to cover the basics of finding China suppliers. And who knows, maybe you’ll find me via this article on Google after all. Win-win, right?

So, you can find China suppliers at:

A) Chinese trade fairs

The best place to find reliable China suppliers is the Canton Fair, which is the biggest trade fair in China.

In 2008, more than 10,000 Chinese companies attended the Canton fair (in the spring session). Despite the enormity of the fair, you’ll find lot’s of quality suppliers there.

The Canton Fair organization committee has set a very high threshold for exhibition companies. Let us take the textile industry, for example. Only companies with more than $US3 million export turnover in the previous year are qualified to attend the Canton Fair (for companies from the Eastern part of China…the minimum for a western China company is $US1 million).

So the suppliers you meet at the Canton Fair are mostly big and authentic ones that are selected and recommended by the local government. Big buyers can always find big and ideal suppliers at the Canton Fair. But even if you are a smaller buyer, I would suggest you choose smaller, rapid-developing companies instead of big suppliers.

Big buyers like Wal-Mart and Target are priorities for big suppliers. Smaller buyers’ interests will be sacrificed first if they don’t have enough production capacity to fulfill all the orders at peak season.

On the other hand, your orders likely will be well cared for by smaller suppliers exhibiting at the Canton Fair.

The other reason I recommend smaller but quality suppliers from Canton Fair is that they quickly respond to your questions and concerns. That is very important, especially when your order is really complicated.

Meanwhile, the East China Fair is a large-scale trade fair that is second only to the Canton Fair.

Also if you are based in a country geographically connected to China - for example, if you are buyer from Russia - you might be interested in attending the Harbin Fair, which is close to Russia.

B) B2B websites

I have worked in several trade companies, and whenever I received an inquiry from foreign buyers, the first thing I always did was go to Alibaba.com to compile a list of suppliers, compare price and narrow down the list. That fact shows how useful it is to use B2B websites to find good suppliers.

There are many sourcing B2B websites out there, like Alibaba, Made-in-China.com, Globalsources.com, and Tradekey.com.

Globalsources set the highest quality threshold by charging an expensive supplier membership fee, so supplier quality is relatively higher than on other platforms. Alibaba, meanwhile, is a helpful resource. But not all companies are real – although most are. One thing I need to stress is that Gold Supplier and TrustPass members on Alibaba aren’t necessarily real companies. Check our article, “Gold Suppliers and TrustPass Suppliers on Alibaba“, to find out why.

C) Search engines

Use Google or Baidu.com to search China suppliers. Vary the search term to find a more comprehensive list of suppliers showing up in search results. Meanwhile, pay attention to the advertising results on Google or Baidu, like the ones I mentioned I was trying to use. This kind of advertising is pretty new in China, and companies that are pioneering enough to buy these ads are worth a look.

D) Industry associations

It’s always a good idea to search the industry association websites or buy industry publications from those related associations to search for reliable suppliers and buyers. We have compiled a list on Chinese industry associations, which might be worth a look. One thing I might add is that they are mostly very bureaucratic. You can do a search on their websites to find information and useful resources, but don’t expect that they will answer your email.

Editors’ note: Steven Chow is a Harbin-based business consultant and dear bizCult friend. You can ask Mr. Chow a China sourcing/business question here if you like. This article is reprinted with permission from Chinawhy.net.

    Channel: Vital News     |