In the previous post as a response to my reader, I introduced one efficient way to purchase cheap jewelry from reliable Chinese suppliers. That is, to shop with online China-based stores which allow you to order products in small quantities at low wholesale prices (read the full post here). Here I am going to talk about another good way to get made-in-China jewelry at minimum cost.
Whether you are running a big store or a small shop, you can choose to use one or more online Chinese shopping sites to stock up on products for your inventory. Once you have established stable cooperative relationships with such sites, everything will go easy and you don’t have to worry about your store’s stock anymore. Besides, by shopping with stores accepting small wholesale orders (as small as I piece per order), you can minimize your risk as you don’t need to hold too much stock or to invest too much money. However, despite that there might be more hassles, cooperating with a partner based in China can help you save even more in terms of cost.
This sounds a little bit like traditional trading, for which buyers may need to visit the destination country in person to negotiable about the details concerning the cooperation. However, it is actually not the same thing. It is always good if you can arrange a trip to China to talk face to face with the person you are interested in partnering with, but it is not always necessary to do so. Everything can be done through the internet, phone call or mailing.
The most key part is to find out a reliable partner who is honest, dependable, professional and competent. In particular, I personally would encourage you to use transaction platforms like Aliexpress.com to locate a good partner for your business. Here are the reasons and the specific ways for your reference:
Why?
It can help reduce your cost. Although most wholesale transaction sites including Aliexpress.com and DHgate.com do not charge any fees on buyers and they claim that they are free to use for sellers, they are not really free. Anyway, they need to make money to support the running of their services and to ensure their staff a good life.
Take Aliexpress.com for instance, it is true that they do not charge any fees on sellers upon membership registration. They earn money by adding a 5% commission to the product prices sellers submit to their site. That is, the prices shown on the site are “seller price + Aliexpress commission”. To balance between the cost and the profit, sellers have to submit a price that is profitable, of course. As a result, the prices listed on the site are not the bottom. And this is the very reason why I believe shopping online with the sites is not the only good way for your business.
How?
The best way to spot a trusted partner, as far as I am concerned, is to use sites where there are many sellers selling goods to global buyers. Aliexpress.com, DHgate.com or eBay.com is worth taking a good look as the sites are famous and have attracted the biggest amounts of suppliers. Again, let’s take Aliexpress.com as an example. When you trade with a seller at Aliexpress.com, you pay your order at a price which has been added with a commission by Aliexpress.com. To ensure their own profits, the Aliexpress.com system does not allow sellers and buyers to exchange information such as contact email, phone call number or the like. As a result you can get the personal contact information through the site. However, smart sellers tend to leave a note with their contact info in the package they send to you. After you receive the goods and feel satisfied with the products, you can contact the seller and negotiate for further cooperation.
The good thing is, you can get a lower price than the one listed on Aliexpress.com as the sellers no longer need to pay the site the required commission. Generally those offer you the contact details are more than happy to trade with you bypassing the platform as they do not have to wait that long for the releasing of their money or and their cost will be reduced as well.
However, as every coin has two sides, whiling you can benefit from the lower pricing by doing business with the sellers bypassing the site, you may have to face higher risks. Without the protection of the platforms, you may be scammed or ripped off. So I would suggest you trade with the seller of interest for several times before you increase your order amount. For instance, you can buy different products from the seller without using the site from time to time to test their product quality and services.
As long as you can find a trusted partner, it is not a problem if he or she does not sell the products you want. Use the best Chinese domestic shopping sites to search for products and compare prices and then ask the partner to arrange the sourcing and logistics. You can pay the partner a commission which you both have discussed and agreed on.
You may ask: if I have to pay the partner a commission, does it mean I have to pay the same high cost for the products I intend to purchase? My answer: of course not. My reasons: 1) by cooperating with a partner, you will pay much less shipping fees as you can ask the partner to combine the many small orders on various products into a single one; 2) by referring the Chinese shopping websites you are able to find the best prices – the prices listed on international shopping sites like Aliexpress.com tend to be higher as they are added with margins for different layers of middle-men
OK, let me introduce some amazing Chinese shopping sites targeting Chinese merchants or consumers, from which many suppliers at Aliexpress.com, Alibaba.com or DHgate.com buy products for their foreign trade business:
Like Aliexpress.com, all of the sites mentioned above belong to Alibaba.com. To search for products at any of the sites, you can use Google Translate to transform the words into Chinese first and then it will become super easy to find the products and the prices.
As for made-in-China cheap jewelry, you are encouraged to go for partners based in Guangzhou or Yiwu, which have a good number of wholesale marketplaces of jewelry. If the partner lives in ether of the city, he or she is able to visit the marketplaces to source the products you want without paying the domestic shipping fee. Besides, they can help verify the quality standards of the product in person and the risk is thus reduced.
Ad for our own international trading business: