International Trade Agents

Many people believe that they can make a lot of money when they do some international trading business, however, international trade business is not as easy as you think, and international trade is probably not as profitable as you expect.

1. International trade is more complicated because it involved with import and export, international shipping, language and culture barrier, international payment. There is import or export duty that you need to check, some items are easy to import and export, some of them are not. You need good packaging when you do an international shipment, and it takes longer and costs more than domestic shipping, if you don’t speak your trade partner’s language or your trade partner’s language, you might need a translator’s help. International payment transferring might cost you some fees as well, and there is limit to transfer the payment crossing the borders, for example, Paypal charge you 3.9% + fixed amount per transaction, Western Union charges you with a fixed amount which is quite high, and there is a limit for cross-border transaction.

2. International Trade is not as profitable as it used to be because of the Information Technology, it is much easier nowadays to find leads, easy to find your international trade partners. There can be less or no middle man in between you and your trade partners because of websites. Many suppliers from China can easily set up an account on Alibaba, and there are so many competitors on Alibaba, they have to lower their profit, so some prices that you see on the website are actually too low, sometimes they are even lower than the local prices, because they want to attract the customers to send them inquiry. And eventually you will find out that the lowest prices always have some problems.

3. Many people have a wrong consumption that if you go direct to the manufacturers of product, they can get a better deal, well, this is a wrong idea, with the Information Technology, there is no difficulty for the manufacturers to post their information online, and you will have no problem to find them, however, some manufacturers don’t want to deal with every customer, they just want to deal with a few big distributors or trading companies, because they don’t have much time or they don’t want to focus on customer services and international trade, it is much easier to sell to a few big distributors and pass the customer leads to their distributors, when they receive a new customer inquiry, they just give it to their distributors. If you are new in international business, it is better for you to start dealing with those “middle men” because they give you better customer services and they are willing to sell to you in a small quantity, when you are set up with your sales channels and you can handle in big volumes you can start to talk to the manufacturers.

To avoid the middle men and still want to get the services provided usually by the middle men, you need to have an international trade agent who can provide you services like import and export documents, international shipping, translation, and cross-border payment handling, then you can deal directly with the manufacturers if your MOQ meet their requirements.

Interpreter and driver services

More and more foreigners come to visit Shenzhen, and they want to visit a few factories in one or two days because their schedule is very tight, some suppliers are always willing to pick you up at your hotel and drop you back, but some of them are not very willing to do that, even if they are willing to do that, you don’t want to take this kind of offer because:

1. You don’t want to feel like that owe them anything.

2. You want to be very efficient, you want to travel from one factory to another one. Usually you stay at the urban area, but most of the factories are located in the industrial areas. And you don’t easily find a taxi in the industrial areas. You will need a private Taxi to travel from one factory to another, but please make sure that these factories are not far from each other, the factories can be located in different industrial areas of Shenzhen, and they can be very far from each other. For example, you can visit Bao’An District in one day, visit LongGang District in another day.

How much does it cost to hire an interpreter and driver with a car together?

It is usually minimum 200USD per day, excluding gas, toll and packing.

However, I would like to offer you very good rates for the next 3 months (from March 1st to May 31th), I want to charge you only 150 USD per day for a limit of 8 hours (every extra hour is 15USD) and include 100 Kilometers (every extra kilometer would be 0.5USD), toll and packing fees are also included.

What information do you need to prepare for the driver?

It is better if you can make appointments with all the companies that you are going to visit, and also ask them to send you their addresses in Chinese and the contact persons’ cell phone numbers, if they can provide their addresses in Google Or Baidu maps link, it is even better.

How many companies in Shenzhen can you visit in one day?

Maximum 4. If these companies are located in the same district, it is possible to visit 4 companies in one day, assuming one hour visit for one company.

What type of car do we provide for you?

We usually drive a basic car which can be a Hongda Fit, Buick Excelle, Kia K2, if you need a fancy car, it is possible but you will need to pay extra.

How do you tell if it is a trading company or a manufacturer?

How many kinds of manufacturers are there in China?

 

When you are looking for a manufacturer on Alibaba, you are not sure if it is a trader or manufacturer even though they always prefer to claim that they are the manufacturer, but sometimes they are not, they can be just a trading company.

 

1. A trader who has partnership with a manufacturer.

A trading company that deals with electronis likes to focus on marketing and sales, as well as sourcing and quality control, but sometimes a trading company has only one source of their product, they have partnership with one factory, sometimes they are one of the shareholders of a factory, or they might develop one or two items and have them manufactured at a factory, in all these cases, they always claim that they own the factory.

2. An assembly house.

Some companies are actually an assembly house with a lot of focus on marketing and sales. This kind of companies have a very small assembly house with one or two production lines, but their focus is on marketing, sales as well as sourcing and quality control. In the electronics business such as cell phone or tablet PC, this kind of assembly factories arrange PCBA boards, plastic housing, LCD display and batteries, and hire a few workers to put them together and do some burn-in test. And They call themself a factory because they do have a couple production line and a few labors for assembly and QC.

3. Genuine manufacturer.

This kind of companies start from purchasing the raw materials, and they have their own R&D team, they own some heave machines such as SMT machines, injection mold machine, and etc. Usually their producing capability is very big, they can produce hundreds of cell phone or tablet in just one hour.

 

I am sure that you all want to deal directly with the genuine manufacturer, however, if your volume is not big enough, most of the manufacturers will not deal with you, you might need to deal with their distributors, sometimes it is better to deal with an assembly house or even a trading company.

How to get response to your inquiries that you send to the Chinese Vendors?

I have heard a lot of my clients that they have never get a response from their suppliers and they have to ask my translation help on that, sometimes they just want me to call them and if they are available, I will make a 3-way phone call, put both you and your supplier on the phone, I act as an interpreter in between. In this case, I charge my clients on a hourly basis.

Here are some tips that might help you get some replies.

1. When you are sending an inquires for quote, please make sure that the suppliers understand what items you need, and how many pieces you need for each item. If you are looking for an electronics item, they will either sell you one sample or thousands of pieces, if you only need 100 or 200 pieces for a customized item, most of the time they are not interested.

2. When you are writing an inquiry, please make sure that your English is easy to understand. As many Alibaba suppliers receive too many inquiries every day, they need to hire someone cheap to read the inquires, I am sure that many big Alibaba suppliers have someone who speaks very good English, however, the one who is reading your inquiries might not speak good English, hense, they might have difficulty to understand your emails.

3. Do not create a standard letter and send it to a lot of suppliers. Many indian people like to create a standard inquiry, and try to send it to as many people as they can, and eventually they get one reply at all. People in China have no interest in people who will talk to too many of their competitors. So most of the time, a short email is better than a long one.

4. If you are looking for a cheap item with a small quantity, most of the suppliers are not so interested unless you can place a big order after that. If you have a nice website that introduces yourself and your company, if you describe your project very well and your project will require a lot of the item you are looking for, most of the suppliers will show interest and give you a good price.

5. If you don’t get the response in one or two days, you can send it again. Or you can send a text message to their cell phone, or you can just give them a call, if you can’t communicate well with them on the phone, you can hire a phone call interpreter service.

 

If you still have no way to get the response, why don’t you contact me, I will help you get some response, please be aware that I will charge you on a hourly basis. My hourly rate is usually USD30.

Protect your business in China with a third party

As you know, it saves you a lot of money to import from china, and it saves you a lot of time and money to complete the transactions on the internet. You can search the suppliers you like and contact them via Email or phone, you might come to visit them once in a while.

1. The information you get online might not be true or complete, sometimes the address you found on their website might not even exist, or not complete, and sometimes you can never reach them via phone. We can help you verify the suppliers and make sure you get all the information you need.

2. There are more or less some communication barrier between you and your suppliers, we can help you improve your communication efficiency.

3. Many suppliers are not very committed to the lead time, especially when they are busy, we can go and talk to them, try to understand the status and report to you so that you will always have updates.

4. Small suppliers do not pay attention to their Quality Control, if they know that an inspector on your behalf will come and check the goods, they usually will do their best.

If you hire a freelancer to be your representative to help you with the jobs above, you will only need to spend a very small amount of money and your business in China will be more secured.

Your Point of Contact in China

If you are not sure of your business in China, if you just want to develop some relationships with the manufacturers or customers, if you can’t come to China very often, if you don’t want to send a full-time employee to China, we can help you!

Here are some freelancers who can help you with your business development in Shenzhen China.  We are not just interpreters, we are helping you not just because of the language barrier.

We can do some preparation jobs for you before you come to China, sometimes you might not be able to get all the responds from the inquiries you sent, we search online and find more contact information and we can make phone calls on your behalf, they will feel very confortable speaking to a local guy in their native language, so that you will get the most responds, and we will translate what the conversation for you.

With a point of contact in China, your business partners will feel very confident in doing business with you, some bad businessmen in China will need to hesitate if they want to play games with you, they will have to provide true information for you because you have someone in China.

With a contact point in Shenzhen, you will be able to arrange your shipments very easy, you can ask all your suppliers to ship samples to your point of contact who will then consolidate and ship them to you, or you can ship all the samples to your point of contact, and then your point of contact will distribute them to your business partners.

There are more reasons why you need a point of contact in China…

 

Business Consultant

 

If you are new to China, if you don’t know how to do business with the Chinese, if you want to develop your product in Shenzhen, if you want to find your electronics in Shenzhen, if you want to have your items made in China, you might need a local consultant like me to answer your questions and give your some guidance to avaid problems before proceeding. Hiring a consulting service is much cheaper than hiring a full-term employee to perform similar functions.

As an international business consutant specialized in electronic products, I help my clients with meeting schedule, product quality control and factory verification, shipping arrangement. I can also answer clients’ questions with regards to the processes in product development and manufacturing as well as shipping. I also provide as much information as I can, or even proposals and solutions for my clients if they can give me details. 

Sometimes I might not be able to answer all your question, but I can still do some research in Chinese, while you don’t usually do that.

With the knowledge and information you need, you will be easily shoot your targets directly and make a good profit  without wasting your time and money on some unnecessary things.

I charge my clients on a hourly rate basis for my consulting services. We can arrange Skype meeting if you need my services.

Is it possible to get original parts for Iphone and Ipad

What if your Iphone or Ipad not working functionally, will you need to replace the original mother board?

What if your earphone doesn’t work, will you be able to replace the original earphone.

How about camera not working?

What if you drop your Iphone or Ipad and it damages so badly. Will you be able to check and see if it functions? If yes, you are luck, you will just need to replace the “glass”.

Do you want to send your broken Iphones and fixed in China?

If you go to a local Apple store and repair your phone, you would probablly like to get a new one because it is too costly. However, if you send it to China, and they put a high-copy parts for you, it will function the same, and it is hard to see the difference between orginal and copy, but the cost is much different. That is why you want to ship your broken phone to China. However, you need to be aware that Not all the broken phones are repairable, only 80% of them are possible to be repaired.

Do you know that purchasing an Iphone or Ipad without 2 or 3 year subscription at a local service carrier is not affordable to everyone in China? It is also a good idea to ship the used Iphones or Ipads to China because local Chinese people are tired of copy Iphones. Second hand Iphones or Ipads are still welcome in China if you are selling them in a very reasonal price, but don’t give it to them as a gift, because of an old Chinese saying which is that if it is not something you like, do not give it to others.

 

Here are some technical terms that you might want to learn when you are searching for a good and reliable suppliers to fix your Iphones.

FPC (flexible printed circuit) 柔性线路板

ACF (Anisotropic Conductive Film) 异方性导电胶膜, You need an ACF tacking machine to attach this film to the glass/LCD before lamination.

How do you remove your touch panel from your Iphone? As you know, when you laminate your touch panel on the LCD, you need a film called ACF. so as a reverse engineering technology, you need to head this film up and use a small steel wire (smaller than this file) to remove it, of course, this is done by a touch panel removal machine ( Iphone LCD disassembly machine).

OCA (Optical Clear Adhedive) 光学胶 it is used in between cover len and sensor glass.

Cover len 盖板 is usually the top layer of your Iphone.

Polarizer is on top of the LCD glass, it is the top part of LCD module.

ITO (tin-doped indium oxide), it is an transparent layer for capacitive sensing of screen.

Business coordinator/guide/consultant/agent in Shenzhen China

If you have a very good project in Shenzhen China, you might want to hire someone who can take care of it. I can act as your interpreter/guide/agent/consultant/coordinator/translator/representative/...

I can also provide engineering and technical support, conduct product Quality Control inspection, that means that I can also be your engineer/technician/inspector.

As an interpreter/translator, I just help you overcome the language barrier.

As an agent, we help you source and purchase the items you like.

As a consultant, I provide some good information for you, because I am experienced in international trade and electronics technology, as well as manufacturing process.

As a coordinator, I help you find a good hotel and make appointment with the suppliers or customers that you are going to visit.

As a representative, your suppliers or customers will feel much comfortable if you have a local guy who helps you.

What are the business models in China?

We, as interpreters and consultants, in a very important position of your business model, will help you achieve your target in a very effecient way.
Here are some information provided by a local consultant who is very experienced in international trade.
There are many suppliers on Alibaba, however you don’t know whether there are manufacturers or not, maybe they are traders, you just don’t know, how do you tell a manufacturer from a trader?
Here is a simple tip, look at their address, if it is located in the city area such as Futian, Luohu and Nanshan district, and they don’t have any other detailed address, most of the time, they are just traders, as the factories can’t be located in the urban area, sometimes some suppliers claim that they are manufacturers and even put both their office and factory address on the website, however their factory addresses are either not detailed, or do not exist at all, you can’t find it at all.
So you might want to tell your friends that they are liars, you can do that, however, I would say this is a very popular business model in China, as you know it is quite expensive to run a factory with those production lines, SMT machines, injection machines and employment of so many people, and it is not so easy to fulfill the capability of a factory unless you can give them some very big orders such as 30K to 100K sets per month. Because of reasons listed, the factories will try to get orders from different sources, such as the local traders. And the traders need to partnership with these factories too, in fact, they act as the factories’ sales departments.
Some people want to be self-employed, because they don’t want to work in any company, so they set up a company with a HSBC bank account, and they pay to be a member on Alibaba, from where they can get a lot of inquiries, and they claim that they are the manufacturers which they are not but partnership with them.