Looking for the best overall sourcer / wholesaler in Asia

I am hoping.to sell on Amazon soon and I am a bit confused about certain wholesalers in general in Asia. (I cannot find any inexpensive ones in other parts of the world). I am on a disability pension and unluckily cannot afford as much money as many others can.

Before I go on I have heard that in some cases individuals on these websites can scam you - take your money and not send product , send you an inferior Product or some other scam I feel I haven't got a lot of choice as money is tight. At the moment I can afford may be $ 400 worth of product and I would like to get 100 of them or thereabouts. At the moment I am looking at micro sd cards , flash drives , or possibly external hard drives. I may branch out into laptops or tablets if all goes well and I can make enough profit to be able to afford to do this.


There are three companies that I have found in my searches and I am hoping to get some feedback from all of you are there on which of the three may be the best overall as far as honesty , reliability and it in general over all trustworthiness.

The three company that I have found are :

DH GATE , GLOBAL SOURCE S , & ALIBABA


Thank you to anybody who replies to this post.

 

Nice to hear that you will start your own online business. To prevent people from scamming you, you should use due diligence. Also you should order test samples to test the products. So you know that you get good quality products rather than inferior quality products. Moreover, you should avoid certain sellers as plague, if they want you to send them money with western union or another unsafe payment method. Something that's also worth to mention is that you should check that the seller has good reviews/rating.

I hope that you succeed with your online business. To get some motivation I would suggest that you read this thread

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/my-dropshipping-journey-with-aliexpress.2759773/

 

I think you would be wasting your time on these products; there is nothing unique about them,
and they can be gotten just about anywhere, amazon, ebay, walmart, computer stores, etc...

aliexpress is nortious on cheap, low quality products, however, sometimes, you can find
something good, just look at the seller profile very good to make sure they are trusted...

and I would not stock up on any products until you are sure you have a winner, otherwise, you
may end up with a bunch of stuff that you can not sell; It is not as easy as you may think....

Just ask all those former shopify customers that never made any money paying $30/mo....
(ROFL...)

 

Aliexpress is a retail site, so you won't get the best prices from suppliers there.

@gcfarri, You should be cautious about accepting the reviews and feedback ratings on most of the Chinese B2B sites. Also,the verification processes used by the sites you name are as good as useless.

I suggest you read my post in this thread:
Global sources , Ali Baba and Alliexpress + in the other good wholesalers.

In that post I mention a safe way to buy on Alibaba, but in my book I also identify a B2B site where what you see is what you get. In other words, you can trust what you see there.

I would also agree with @dscurlock that the market for the electronic products you are thinking of importing for sale is overcrowded and you would be unable to compete. In addition to that, many of them sold on Aliexpress are counterfeits and it is illegal to import and sell them.

In a recent article by Bloomberg, it is reported that the Alibaba group has been blacklisted by the US Federal Trade Representative office as a haven for knockoffs.

Walter Hay

 

Forget this niche, it's too competitive and the margins are too low.

 

What do you suggest that he do instead?

 

If I told you, I would have to kill you

 

I don't think you are too secretive. Just saw a thread where you posted a link to your Youtube channel. So you're focusing on music. Is it too hard to recommend somebody here to become a potential competitor to you?

 

I've been browsing in Alibaba out of curiosity on how it works and I am a bit surprised that for a certain product a minimum pcs you need to buy is 35,000 pcs? Is that for real? It is cheap though but that would be a lot to take, isn't it? I'm interested to know how things work there.

 

It all depends on who the seller is. If the seller is a manufacturer he will offer low prices but in return you will have to buy large quantities. They get less money per unit but earn on the volume.

 

I see but how will I be able to know if the product has a good quality? I'm really interested to know how things work on there.

 

You should at least order some test samples before buying a large stock. Then it should be mentioned that this is not something that will guarantee that you will get good quality products as they can provide good quality test samples and then when you order the ordinary stock you will get inferior quality products. However this is a step that you're recommended to take. Also you could find someone who provide services to take a look at the factory and do some investigation for you. Also you could get in touch with @Importexport as he has knowledge in this field.

 

As I did not get the answer I was hoping for I should have asked everyone what is the BEST one overall from the three that I listed in my original post OR are there any other inexpensive ones that I could look at, Whether they are in Asia or not.

I will mention the three again so that people don't have to scroll to the top.

The three company that I have found are :

DH GATE , GLOBAL SOURCES , & ALIBABA

 

Just want to clarify some things. The companies that you have mentioned are only platforms. You are buying your stock from suppliers on the platforms. It's not Alibaba, Global Sources or Dh gate that you buy from. In general, the platforms are not responsible if you make a purchase of a stock that you're not satisfied with because of poor quality or another reason. Your issue is with the supplier. Therefore it's very difficult to say for example avoid DH Gate because there is 1 bad supplier from 1000 suppliers or avoid Alibaba because there are 2 bad suppliers from 10000 suppliers. On the platforms that you have mentioned here, there are both scammers and honest suppliers. It's your job to find the honest ones. I have experience from Alibaba so I can recommend it to you. But I can't recommend a certain supplier. That's your job.

 

i rely on usa % eu suppliers. they are good in all field.

 

I think it's wrong to generalize. You claim that US and EU suppliers all good in all fields. So you mean that Chinese and other suppliers are bad then. Don't you? If you have experience from trading you might have noticed that there are a mix of suppliers everywhere. Just because a supplier is from EU, it doesn't mean that you will automatically get top quality products. The same goes with suppliers from other areas. The conclusion is that there are both good and bad suppliers. There isn't a specific region that you can say that all their suppliers are good, or bad. Everywhere you go there will be good and bad suppliers. It's your job to test the suppliers and use some due diligence. Of course you will lose some money every now and then. But in the end you will find a supplier that offers products that suit your business well with regard to quality, design and other requirements that you have.

 

I agree with @ MrKing01 that there are good and bad suppliers everywhere. As for quality out of China, I have visited a large number of factories there and have been importing since 1987, so I have seen how manufacturing works.

I began importing from Taiwan and Hong Kong because I was having problems with local manufacturers. My decision to import resulted in getting far better quality, better service, quicker delivery, and substantially lower prices. Many Taiwanese companies later set up factories in mainland China, and under their management, quality standards were maintained.

A number of the Chinese factories I have visited have what amounts to two production lines. One produces high quality goods, and the other produces poor quality to satisfy those Western buyers who can think only of low prices. Some of the big retail chains have forced Chinese factories to accept such low prices that the factories had no option but to drastically reduce the quality to fulfill their orders. The high quality products are still available to those importers who want them.

If you want to have satisfied customers it is worth paying a very small amount more to buy the high quality version. The price difference between high and low quality products ex-factory in China can be very small.

Most newbies to importing are not aware that other countries can compete with China, even on price. I have seen good quality products made in Italy, Germany, UK, and Australia all selling in other Western countries at prices comparable to lower quality Chinese made products.

This is why I have listed over 20 other countries, as well as China, in my sourcing and importing book, with links to sites where good manufacturers can be found.

Walter Hay

 

I would go along with Alibaba. They have another website called AliExpress which allows you to purchase smaller quantities of wholesale products directly from China without having to contact the wholesaler beforehand.

 

So Alibaba Is a better choice all around than the others that I mentioned. That is strange as I posted this question in other forums and I received two other replies and they both said that Global sources was more reliable, so now I am a little mixed up. I did look up Aliexpress but they are ridiculously expensive. I could actually buy them in a local shop on sale for the same price or less. So I can ask the question - "why are they so expensive"- compared to the other ones ?.

 

Aliexpress is more a B2C platform. Customers who want to buy small quantities or 1pc of something can buy what they want. Because the quantities are low (low MOQ), the prices are higher. This can explain your experience where products on sale in a local shop can offer the same price or cheaper price than Aliexpress.

Alibaba is more geared toward businesses. A B2B platform. You will normally see that the MOQ (minimum order quantity) is high. This is because the suppliers are making their earnings by selling in volume. They have a smaller profit for each product they sell, but because they sell a large quantity they can make a decent profit. As a customer on Alibaba you can expect that the suppliers will demand that you buy a large quantity, but it's this that will guarantee that you get good prices per item.

Moreover I don't think that you should use only one platform and then ignore the others. For example, using Alibaba and then ignoring Global sources etc. It's in the nature of traders to be flexible and not limiting themselves to a single marketplace. One month you might for example find cheap USB sticks on Alibaba, while in the next month you find cheaper ones, of the same brand and design, with cheaper prices on Global sources.

So my advice is that you act flexibly and don't limit yourself to a single marketplace.