Do I have to hire a middleman to find a reliable China Supplier?

By David Lee, December 21, 2008

I have just sourced a middleman to handle the business between your company and us,one of my old clients told me like that 3 months ago. Mr. Timer Lee, one of my colleagues, talks this issue to me today. It surprises me that this customer has been trusted us so much. What makes him change his mind and hire a middleman? I doubt it and I have to find out the real reason.

Finally, we found that there was an event of defective parts 4 months ago. In this event, we did ship the quality products to the customer. All products have passed 100% strict testing before shipment. However, he still received one defective item when receiving the goods. He has reported this issue to the AS team. The AS team concluded the defective item was caused by man-made factor during shipment and installation. Thus, the company does not have to bear the liability and refuses to send any quality item to replace it.  The customer is very disappointed. And he had to pay to buy a good item to replace it. From then on, this customer has not trusted us so much any more. He wants to change supplier and he did find some middlemen to help him negotiate it. Now we can see why….

Then, do I have to hire a middleman to find a reliable China Supplier? It is hard to answer this question in an absolute way. Frankly speaking, if you hire a middleman, you will have to pay his or her salary. It does mean that you have to support him or her life, profit and other fees in a form of commission. Moreover, your supplier has to support him or her as well, because he or she will ask your supplier for commission secretly. So, you have to pay double commission actually. Therefore, your cost will be increased too much compared to your competitors.

Secondly, in order to obtain higher and higher commission from your supplier, your middleman will do his or her best to find new supplier even though your current supplier has been doing well enough. The worst is that he will pay much more attention to prices rather than quality so long as he or she can get much more commission. At last, no wonder you can receive more and more defective items and lose your business.

Thirdly, you will not be able to connect your supplier in direct when you do need direct help, because your middleman always try to hide the contact way of your supplier and prevent you and the supplier being direct contact. Sometimes they transmit incorrect information to your supplier because of his or her knowledge shortage or neglect, and vice versa.

The Forth, your middleman will be disappeared one day because he or she is private. You will be not able to find him or her and your supplier by that time. It will bring you great trouble when you need stable supply and service from the same supplier.

Now, we can see how to find reliable China supplier. The best way is to contact and built relationship with China manufacturer or China supplier in direct without hiring any middleman. However, if you are not capable of communicating with your supplier, you will have to find and hire a middleman to help you. If you can do it well, then why not save your money and reduce your business risk?