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Path: Sourcing News & Advice
>> Import from
China Advice >> Lack of understanding magnifies
product problems

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Lack of understanding magnifies product problems

Posted: December 12, 2014

by Jacob Yount

Understand your product and the manufacturing
processes.

Normal variations become perceived problems,
when in actuality, no problem exists.

This is what happens when buyers treat China
manufacturing on the same level as clicking “proceed to checkout” button on
Amazon.

Understand the processes:
If something is done by hand, then function as if you understand
this.

Imagine handling a project of hand-painted
figurines. The factory is going to assume you understand there are going to be
normal variations. This would be a right assumption on the factory’s part.

The factory does not consider that they need to
fly to your home country and hold a seminar on what it means for an item to be
hand-painted by a team of low-cost factory workers.

What is acceptable? In a situation like
this, work to understand what acceptable variation your factory can achieve.

Before production starts establish with your
factory what variations are likely. Then whatever changes you inform them to
make, you need to make sure they can actually do the changes.

All too often, importers are expecting one thing
and the factory has no idea they are expecting it, because the standard level wasn’t established.

“Do it good” is not a standard level on
an item that is going to have variations. Buyers tell their factories “do this
right” as if the factory thinks, “gee, I couldn’t have come up with that
excellent control point”.

So how does not understanding this lead to
perceived problems?

Be careful when viewing photos of the item that
the factory may send you. Factories frequently take photos that are
too-zoomed-in. In other words, they don’t take photos, that accurately show the
item.

Unless your buyer’s standard is holding up the
polyresin elf statue and looking up his nostrils, you shouldn’t use a photo that
up-close as a standard of viewing the item.

Look at the item in
perspective; consider the size of the item, the production processes and the
point of the item. Nobody sticks a figurine 5 centimeters away from their
eyeballs to check the paint lines. The purpose of the figurine is that it sits
on the mantle. View it from that perspective. Surgical tool it ain’t.

I’m not talking about accepting junk quality. I’m talking about
knowing how your item is made, how to control your item and then how to sell
your item.

This may mean as the importer that you educate
your buyer that the item is going to be a great item and of course, since it is
hand-painted here are what kind of normal variations to expect.

The problem with China’s easy access, is that
very few of the folks who import are knowledgeable of the processes. Therefore
they sell their items and order based on false premises. Before they even knew
about the processes, they tell their buyers, everything will be absolutely
perfect.

Then when normal variations become evident, they
immediately think it’s a result of poor production or control.

They start yelling at the factory that they need
to fix some found “issue”.

The factory is confused.

Buyers toss around emotionally-charged language
that causes the factory to halt production.

Delays start setting in.

Factory goes back to “fix” perceived problem,
messes up the packing, dirties the item with hands covered in paint and makes
the item worse than it was.

Moral of the story? Keep things in perspective.
Let the factory focus on the main thing, which is, producing a quality item.

And understand
what “quality item” means.

Jacob
Yount lived in China from 2001 to 2012, during which time he started JLmade.
He is now based out of North Carolina in the US and his home office is still in
Suzhou, China; manufacturing and exporting branded merchandise, promotional
products and retail gifts for distributors worldwide. Contact Jacob at [email-masked],
or find him on his blog.

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