Importing Goods from China Successfully and Securely?

In recent years China has thrived so robustly and has been named as the 'World's factory' because of its high production and low labor cost. It seems to be a trend now to import goods from China directly since there will be middleman in between and hence one can get the latest and cheapest products.

'So how do I do it? I don't speak Chinese and China is thousand miles away from my home', you may wonder. This is still valid for a few years ago.

The playing field has changed dramatically and now you just need a few clicks online and you will have the latest qualified products to your home/office directly from China, thanks to the appearance of online wholesale shops in China in recent years.

Though it is much easier to order goods from China, a few things you should still need to be noted:

1. Quality of Products

Products quality is always the primary concern of an importer. Many of the wholesalers claim that they will do some quality-checks before the products are sent out. This is a good service but I'd suggest you, to be safe, to find a site that offers samples so that you can have a check on the product yourself.

2. Schedule of Delivery

Delivery time is another concern for an importer. Sometimes a product would become useless if it takes 2 months to be shipped. Try to find a company that locates in a large city, like Hong Kong, and at the same time they offer express courier service like UPS, EMS, etc.

3. Processing of Payment

Bank-wire was the only option before the internet times. Now different payment gateways based on transferring money through credit card have appeared. Paypal is one of the examples. Make sure the wholesale company offers Paypal-like payment gateway and charge-back and buyer protection are available.

4. Tax

Import tax can make your cost significantly increase. Almost most of the overseas online-shop will not be responsible for the import tax. But some of the better ones will try to lower the tax as much as possible for the customers. They will try to separate the goods into smaller packages, state the goods as gifts and a lower nominal value in the custom form so that the charges would be minimized.

5. Minimum Order Quantity

Many ebayers and small local shops would care much about the minimum order quantity. Only a few online wholesale shops (like