How the buyers avoid to be cheated losing money in China?
I’ve been told by some clients about their bad experience in purchasing goods from China before coz their money was taken away by Chinese supplier, China buying agent or shipping agent. After that, some of them stopped all the business related to China markets, yet some of them kept doing business in China. With lessons learnt, they adapted to the business mode and culture in China, and everything has been smoothly since then.
A principle of human behavior is reciprocity. If you are nice to them, usually for most Chinese, they would be nicer to you, they will do their best to help you get things done smoothly.
From cost aspect, the main reason why some Chinese take client’s money away is because some of the buyers try all means to save costs, give very absurd budget and very strict requirements, wasting them lots of time in vain.
A case in point is a Pakistan businessman ordered 10000 pieces of packaging boxes from a supplier. He kept bargaining at all means with the supplier and got the best price of 1 rmb per piece. That’s very little profits for the supplier. However, for the first sample, he was so picky that he had the supplier modified for about five times but was not willing to pay for labor cost involved coz he insisted it was the fault of the supplier. And he wanted to change another material which costs more. Finally, after nearly one month and a half’s negotiation, they agreed on the final sample and the businessman transferred the money to the supplier. After receiving the money, the supplier disappeared.
Do you think it is feasible to have things done smoothly in China within a set budget?
Sometimes it is almost impossible. Relationship(also known as guanxi) is much more complicated. To have things done smoothly, you might need to treat people to dinner, entertainment, give them gifts or other bribes. That does not cost too much, however, sometimes a package of cigarettes or some drinks in hot days do help you get things done very fast.
