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Auto sales receipt for Product quality

did you know that most new sellers completely screw up the product sourcing process well in this video you'll learn how to use alibaba the right way without getting ripped off if you enjoyed this video don't forget to hit the subscribe button and be sure to hit the bell button to be notified when new videos come out now if you've been following my blog and podcast you know that i do a lot of my sourcing from china in fact i travel to the canton fair in guanzo china every other year to look for suppliers and figure out how to get the most bang for my buck but for many starting online entrepreneurs traveling to china is not always feasible so what can you do well the good news is that you can get access to the world's largest ecommerce marketplace alibaba without leaving the comfort of your home however it's important to understand what you're getting into when you source overseas it can be a great way to get what you need for less but just as you need to be careful on all of your business dealings you need to understand how to buy from alibaba well what is alibaba alibaba is a wholesale directory where you can find manufacturers for your products as well as already made products and in some circles alibaba is considered the largest ecommerce site in the world rivaling amazon now one of the prime differences between amazon and alibaba however is the fact that amazon is more of a storefront while alibaba offers a wholesale directory offering you the ability to source your products online now with alibaba you can buy products at wholesale prices there's a large selection of products and the key thing here is that there's no branded products you can create your own brand and logo and have it put on the products you get from alibaba and this allows you to create custom products you can even use your own designs to create custom products that you can then sell under your own brand now in alibaba you actually find and work with manufacturers so you have a chance to be involved in how your product is designed built and shipped and when you find a supplier in alibaba it's important to realize that you're working with a third-party factory that is not affiliated with alibaba at all after all alibaba is not a retail website instead it's an online directory they don't sell anything instead they connect you with the manufacturers who are actually doing the selling now anyone can use alibaba for free and you do not need to have a company a seller's permit or any credentials whatsoever a website is not necessary either the only thing that an alibaba supplier cares about is that you can buy consistently in bulk so the first thing you need to do is to know your niche ideally you should already know your niche before you use alibaba after all one of the first things to do when you're starting an online store is to have an idea of what you're going to sell in fact before you place a large order with the supplier you find on alibaba it's important that you've validated what you plan on selling so make sure you've done the research and you know there's a market or niche for the products you plan to use to stock your online store after all alibaba is just way too large to haphazardly browse for product ideas so knowing what you want to sell is a must in addition you should know roughly how much your product should cost in order to make an adequate profit selling online so take a look at the pricing on amazon and other marketplaces to see what your product sells for and then work backwards to determine your breakeven point for your sourcing costs and ideally you want to have at least a 66 margin on your goods so if the item is selling for 21 bucks on amazon you want to be able to buy it for less than seven dollars okay so the next step is to go to alibaba.com and if you know your niche just go to alibaba and click on the button that asks you to join free now it's not explicitly necessary to join alibaba in order to perform a supplier search however if you plan on using some of alibaba's other services like trade assurance you will eventually need an account so one of the best things that you can do before you head on over to alibaba actually is to set up a separate email account because once you're active on alibaba and looking for suppliers you will get a ton of emails so a separate account specifically for alibaba can help you keep these emails from taking over your entire inbox so put your email in and then verify it next you'll have to provide all your other information including your location the fact that you're a buyer your company name and more and as soon as you confirm you're ready to go now if you don't have a company name just yet just add a placeholder for now it doesn't really matter all right at this point you're ready to find some suppliers in your niche so as an example if i were looking for a supplier from my wedding handkerchief store i just type in handkerchiefs in the search box and once you perform a search alibaba will sped up a bunch of suppliers for whatever it is that you're trying to sell you can see examples of what they offer as well as how soon orders are ready and whether customization is actually possible now specifically you should pay attention to the price and the minimum order quantity some manufacturers may require a larger upfront purchase so you want to reach out to factories that are in line with your spending power in general though the more you can buy in bulk the lower your prices will be but please be aware that the prices you find in alibaba are often wildly inaccurate and in general the prices listed on the alibaba website tend to be much higher than what you can actually get when you start negotiating with your supplier so overall you should reach out to as many suppliers as you can and get as many quotes as you can so you can get an idea of the range of prices for your product now after you narrow down your suppliers make contact product pages give you the option to contact the supplier and some even have a chat function doing your due diligence on a supplier is a must before moving forward with any order so try to find out a little bit more about the product and obtain a sample all suppliers should be willing to send you a sample and if they refuse just do not work with them however you may have to pay a high price for your sample because the supplier must create them by hand from scratch but it's better to pay for a couple sample orders to compare them than to place a large order and find yourself disappointed now while the sample is going to be expensive most vendors will actually allow you to apply the cost of your sample towards your first bulk order so here are some of the things you're going to want to find out as you contact your suppliers the minimum order requirements how much do you have to order at a minimum for a full order sample pricing in many cases you have to pay for samples find out what the cost is going to be you're going to want to nail down production pricing it's common to see a range of pricing such as like one or two bucks per unit but you want to know the actual cost get them to verify whether it's actually one or two dollars realizing that it might be higher if you customize your product you also have to know how long it's going to take to put together the order you also have to add in the shipping time understand that overseas sourcing can take many weeks or even months you also want to find out the payment requirements find out how you will be required to pay and try to keep the transaction through alibaba especially if it's upfront find out also if you can work with other payment plans later if you establish an ongoing relationship now that in mind here are some guidelines on how to contact a supplier in alibaba first off you need to realize that most good suppliers in alibaba receive hundreds of inquiries per day as a result you need to project confidence and know exactly what you want to buy here's a sample script that i use when i reach out to a supplier for the very first time hi supplier my name is steve and i'm a buyer for bumblebee linens and we specialize in selling handkerchiefs in fact we're the largest seller of handkerchiefs on the internet we're interested in carrying many of the items that you have to offer specifically i'd like to get pricing and availability for the following items please send pricing in 500 1000 and 5000 unit quantities and if you could send us your product catalogs lead times for manufacturing and the moq we would greatly appreciate it now you'll notice that the message is concise professional to the point in addition i ask for multiple quotes depending on the size of the order and even if you don't plan on buying 5 000 units it helps to ask because it implies that you can and are willing to buy that many units now once you've seen a sample and you're satisfied you should negotiate prices with the seller in fact all suppliers in china expect to have some sort of negotiation however your ability to negotiate largely depends on your order volume and if this is your first order and your order size is small you will probably have limited negotiation power realize too that your negotiated price might not include shipping you also need to get the shipping price separate and make sure that it doesn't overwhelm your profit but overall if you've solicited enough quotes from different vendors you should have a pretty good idea of how much your product costs to source and as you go back and forth with your supplier please keep in mind that you should never negotiate the price of your sample this will make you come across as an amateur and leave a bad taste in the mouth of your supplier now before you order ships you're going to want to hire an inspection company like asia inspection or kima to examine your goods before they are sent to you after all once your goods are sent it's extremely expensive to ship them back to china in the event of a problem but once your order arrives it's important to thoroughly check it count the items to ensure that you have what you should also examine each of the products are any of them damaged are they clean is the packaging acceptable now most inspection companies only have time to examine a statistically significant sample size so there still could be defects there's a problem with your order especially damage you can reach out to the supplier and even to alibaba to see about getting a refund now technically alibaba trade assurance protects the buyer in the event that the supplier fails to ship on time or if their product quality varies greatly from what has been agreed upon now is alibaba safe well buying from alibaba is very safe as long as you use trade assurance trade assurance is a service offered by alibaba that allows you to protect your online orders when your payment is made through alibaba.com here's how it works you want to look for the trade assurance symbol as your browsing suppliers in alibaba and if you work with only trade assurance suppliers your order will be protected so make sure you pay for your order online via alibaba's secure payment platform and if you do not pay through alibaba you will not be protected now if there's an issue with your order you can request a refund within 30 days of delivery now there are no additional fees to use trade assurance but you may have to pay a payment processing fee depending on which payment method you select and after you pay your supplier via alibaba if the supplier fails to ship on time or if the product quality varies from the agreed terms alibaba will investigate and help you resolve your claim and in the event that no resolution can be achieved alibaba will simply refund you your money as a result it is completely safe to buy from alibaba all right so here are just some three tips for buying safely on alibaba unfortunately not every supplier in alibaba is as reputable as they should be in fact you might find that some suppliers end up selling low quality products that can cause you problems with your customers and even though trade assurance protects you from monetary loss it can still take time to recover your funds and resolve supplier disputes so as a result it's always better to take some precautions and avoid potential sourcing issues up front if you want to increase the chances that you won't end up with problematic merchandise it's vital that you observe the following safety tips so use reputable suppliers there are different supplier types offered by alibaba and these suppliers often have to jump through additional hoops to be certified there's never a complete guarantee of total quality but if you look for suppliers with all three of the following ratings you will be more likely to find one that takes quality very seriously so first off you want to use a gold supplier this supplier has paid a costly fee to be pre-qualified in many cases the fact that a fee is paid means that it's less likely that you end up getting scammed you also want to look for a trade assurance supplier with this designation you can reasonably be sure that the products are checked before shipment and that they will arrive on time otherwise you can get a refund from alibaba you also want to look for assessed suppliers this is when alibaba actually sends in a third party inspector to see the supplier and you can even get a downloadable report of the results now this is a great place to start when narrowing down your supplier possibilities you also need to be wary of suppliers that ask for a full payment to be sent up front and that you send it independent of alibaba this can be an indication that something shitty might be about to go down two check the reviews and ratings before you decide on a supplier make sure you check the reviews and ratings associated with them and you can actually check these reviews on alibaba of course but it's also a good idea to branch out a little consider googling the supplier to get an idea of what to expect and don't be afraid to google the name of the factory alongside of terms like scam to get a better idea there's also international supplier websites like supplier blacklist that provide reviews and warnings for certain suppliers this can be a good way to do your homework and as you look at forms and reviews watch for these red flags very low product prices in conjunction with complaints about low quality complaints about defective parts or broken products assertions that the first shipment was good but that the second shipment showed quality issues poor working conditions and factories and while you can't completely avoid poor quality all the time you can greatly reduce the chances that you'll get stuck with low quality products finally when looking at suppliers and hoping to find a good one to work with look out for those that purport to offer brand names like disney or nike or whatever for the most part licensed products are not available in alibaba so if you have a supplier claiming to offer low-cost products branded with nike louis vuitton or coach they're probably knock-offs and if you sell these products in turn you can be subject to legal action so watch out for suppliers that claim to offer you access to hot brands at very low prices because they're going to be and you're going to get in trouble now the final thing is something that i always do which is to use your gut don't forget to trust your gut if something seems too good to be true it probably is now does something seem really reasonable are you suspicious of how easy it all seems to be happening well then take a step back you don't want to end up getting scammed i'm always super careful when dealing with chinese suppliers and i'm always overly paranoid because you have to be careful who you trust all right here's just some final thoughts alibaba can be a great place to source products for your online store the prices are cheap and if you're careful about your supplier you can get good deals and products of great quality however it's important to do some groundwork ahead of time and overall alibaba is best suited for those who want to private label their own products and obtain the best pricing possible hope you enjoyed this video now if you like what you saw there's actually a lot more where that came from if you subscribe to my channel below and if you are interested in learning how to sell physical products online then click over here and take my free six day mini course where i'll walk you through everything that you need to know to get started in ecommerce thanks for watching