Quality Tips for Sourcing Promotional Products from China without Problems

Promotional corporate gifts are great for promoting businesses and driving sales. Corporate gifts are also essential for sustaining business relationships – and that is the more reason you must look towards China for branded gifts. There are thousands of custom promotional products companies in China, but you must only source from reliable, experienced and established suppliers.

It is assumed that quality and affordability are uppermost on your mind when planning for promotional products. Not all goods ordered from overseas suppliers turn out right, because some turn out defective or substandard.

And this is the more reason why you need specific guidelines when ordering for marketing gifts from China. This is essential to forestall problems and substandard products and corporate gifts that could undermine your business success.

You will help yourself to apply the following tips to sourcing for quality promotional products from China:

1. Let your sourcing specifications be very thorough

When you provide detailed information regarding your desired promotional products from China, your specifications must be very thorough. When you make initial inquiries from potential manufacturers, it mustn’t be vague or you will obtain vague quotations that could give rise to problems.

A casual inquiry returns a casual quote and this is where problems emanate from. Product and branding information provided to vendors must be detailed so as to obtain quality corporate gift products in return.

2. Understand the limitations of your Chinese vendor

If you are in the US or UK or somewhere else and require corporate gifts from China, you must understand the Chinese are a different and unique people. They have a different language, culture and business values.

Chinese vendors are eager and willing to do business with you, but they may not really understand your home market and customers’ needs. And these cultural differences may impact the quality and finishings of your ordered personalised gifts.

3. Always follow-up with your vendor

You mustn’t leave off your vendor to their own ideas after providing them with promotional products briefs. Gifts for clients must be followed through from assignment to vendor to design, production, packaging and shipping/delivery.

You must always follow-up and work together with promotional gift vendors every step of the way to obtain the exact things you have in mind. Provide your Chinese vendor with required product information, offer supports where they need it, review products per milestone, and convince them you want them to succeed with your promotional products.

4. Be ready and prepared for whatever could go wrong with your product order

No one wishes for things to go wrong, but then things tend to go wrong. In fact, whatever could go wrong will go wrong. And this aptly applies to ordering for promotional products from China or anywhere overseas.

Chinese corporate gift producers may not fully understand your products from your customers’ perspectives, and this could affect product output. To deal with this problem, do not assume your vendor perfectly understands your briefs, so you must help him out to conceive and produce quality gift items that meet your corporate needs.

5. Review quotations from your vendor for follow-up questions

First off, requesting for promotional products quotes repeatedly from a vendor makes you look unserious. And requesting for quotes from different vendors and running away will not help you in the least. It may give you an idea as to what to expect when you’re set, but it will make your vendor prone to wrong quotations.

So to obtain quality quotes for promotional products from China, get a quote and vet it properly for follow-up questions. Always assume that something is wrong with quotations you receive, so analyze it properly and follow up with necessary questions so that you can obtain products that meet your expectations.

Conclusion:

We have been able to cover the basics of sourcing promotional products from China. These promotional items may not necessarily be for business or corporate needs. It could be for social events such as wedding anniversary, birthday parties, educational purposes, family reunion, association events or any other social events.

What is important is that you obtain reputable promotional products from reliable Chinese vendors to meet your needs. Your first order ever may have slight issues, but with subsequent orders you learn invaluable lessons that promote your values in all areas of personal and business life.