5 hacks to sourcing products from China via Alibaba

Image credit: Leon Lee

Sourcing products from China on Alibaba can often be tricky, especially for Westerners. They are either overwhelmed by the large supplier list or fear the possibly of getting scammed. I am going to share my five hacks to sourcing products from China on Alibaba based on my experiences.

1. The best time to source products on Alibaba

Since Alibaba’s server is based in the U.S. and all the product data updates every Tuesday at 12PM PST, the product keyword rankings will renew every Tuesday. So if you conduct searches on Tuesdays, you will get the latest supplier list ranking.

2. Speed up the Sourcing process

Play around with the keywords – most of the suppliers on Alibaba are Chinese and due to the language differences, sometimes one Chinese keyword has a few different meanings in English and vice versa. Try using synonyms or mixing up the order of the words.

Filter the list – If you are using Alibaba for the first time, you’ll probably be overwhelmed when you see over 10,000 product listings for just one particular product you are looking for. I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t have the patience to go through 10,000 products. I search by suppliers instead of the products. There are four boxes underneath the suppliers which include: “Golden Supplier”, “Accessed Supplier”, “Online Now”, and “Trade assurance.” Just tick all the boxes, which will narrow down your supplier list significantly. Also tick the box “North American” under the top markets if you want your products to be shipped to North America. This will further narrow down your results. Choose those that have been on Alibaba for more than 2-3 years. Try to contact as many suppliers as you can to compare the offers.

Live Chat – The reason you should tick the box “Online Now” is to initiate live chat with the suppliers. I never write any email to the suppliers on Alibaba. As a Chinese person myself, we do prefer more personal contact. I normally just send greetings to as many suppliers as I can and tell them what I am looking for. As soon as they reply back, I just ask them if they use WeChat so we can move the conversation to a more personal environment. If you don’t use WeChat, the suppliers also have WhatsApp or Skype accounts. I notice the suppliers become a lot more relaxed and trustful when chatting on WeChat because in WeChat we can see each other’s personal life and activities on WeChat moments.

3. Negotiation, Negotiation, Negotiation!

Ever since I was a kid my mum always bargained the heck out of merchants every time we went shopping and if the merchants didn’t accept the prices she would just walk away. I didn’t want to walk away because I really liked the product but mum would say: “Don’t worry. They will call us back in 10 seconds”… and they did every single time! Chinese merchants used to love Western customers because bargaining wasn’t really part of their culture. Nowadays, Westerners are catching on and starting to bargain, so the merchants raise their prices by at least half so that they still profit.

When it comes to sourcing products on Alibaba, the suppliers can’t raise the prices by half because everything is transparent online, but there is still room for negotiation. You might receive different prices for the same product. Always compare the quality and prices of different samples before negotiating the price with the selected supplier for the formal order and do not push the prices too hard. Everything is negotiable with Chinese suppliers including prices, minimum order, payment terms etc.

4. What you see is not always what you get!

There is not a 100% guarantee that the suppliers won’t scam you even if you choose suppliers with “Golden supplier,” “Accessed Supplier,” and “Trade assurance” badges. A few things you can do to check out the suppliers:

Company website – apart from the company profile page on Alibaba, do they have an official website?

5. Payment