By David Dayton in "Silk Road International"

It goes without saying that not all factories are created equal. Not all factories with international experience are equal either. Certainly there is a level that you'd prefer to work with if price was constant. But this isn't a perfect world so we need to talk about with whom you actually choose to work.

By Kevin in 'The China Sourcing Blog'

The time that a buyer spends at a plant is crucially important. The main goal of taking a plant tour is to observe and judge the plant.

By Leanne in 'The China Sourcing Blog'

All international purchasing managers try to minimize import risk. As a China sourcing expert, in order to achieve this goal we will always recommend you to undertake plant visits to China before you place an order, for the following reasons:

By Dan Harris in China Law Blog

The Financial Times just did a story, entitled 'Fears rise on China groups' payments' on how private Chinese companies are being negatively impacted by the credit crunch (h/t to 'China Economics Blog').

By Leanne in The China Sourcing Blog

Before coming over

Now that we have established that plant tours are an absolute necessity, we can move on to how these tours should be undertaken.

Factory Visits in China are Very Important
Would you send a substantial amount of your hard earned money to someone you have not met before with only a hope that everything will be fine later? Of course not!

So why are you doing this with your newly hired factories in China?

To make a fine point, visiting your Chinese factories on a regular basis is a must for all importers if you want to minimize your risks. From my first hand experiences, I know Wal*Mart's policy is for vendors to visit every one of their factories in 3 months intervals. Wal*Mart is a cost conscious company that would not require these visits if they didn't believe them necessary.

Q: For someone who is talking directly to China manufacturers for the first time, what differences should they expect compared to talking to domestic suppliers?

A: Oh boy, a lot of things. It's incredible. You have the good and bad situations that arise. When you come to a trade show you can obviously meet a lot of new contacts on the show floor, where you really don't know who is Mr. Who.

There are quite a number of good China suppliers offering new and innovative products or offering their manufacturing services. You'll increase the odds of finding good suppliers by sourcing through reputable channels like trade shows or web sites that physically visit and verify that suppliers are real (like Global Sources verified suppliers). Nevertheless, it is good practice to conduct some due diligence on the supplier, and overseas buyers are sometimes surprised to learn of the many tools available to do this.

By Diana in 'The China Sourcing Blog'

I recently accompanied clients to visit a few Chinese mining machinery suppliers. Conversing with these suppliers face to face helped me form a picture of the current work status of these companies, and afforded me a glance at the Chinese mining machinery industry generally