Alibaba is one of the most popular platforms where you can buy wholesale products. This is extremely important if you want to create your own business and take it to the next level.
As long as you find reputable, professional suppliers, you will be fine. But, the truth is that you never really know many of those manufacturers and companies. Some are legitimate, others less so. We are here to describe some of the dangers of using Alibaba. Manufacturing in China is just like US manufacturing, you can find great partners but you can also encounter scammers. However, there are less tools available to you to deal with poor Chinese manufacturers, and the additional difficulties such as differences in customs and language barriers.
Every Supplier is a Gold Supplier
When you learn how to use Alibaba, you will notice that most suppliers have the gold certification. Ideally this would mean the gold supplier is better than the others and he is verified. Unfortunately, Alibaba is misleading clients here, because most buyers have that gold certification. It can be very tricky to figure out what supplier is suitable in your situation.
What you can do is to see how many years the supplier was on the site. Normally suppliers with years of experience should be trustworthy. Even then, you want to check reviews just to be safe. It will help a lot in the long run. It’s a much better idea to work with verified suppliers because they need to pay a certain amount, they also need to have a certification for product manufacturing and so on. This is more legit in the end, and that’s something to take into consideration.
Trade Assurance
When you see things like trade assurance on Alibaba, you might believe that you are fully protected. This type of thing can offer protection to buyers, but that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect system. In fact, it’s pretty far from that. You will find companies that show a very high transaction amount on the trade assurance page, and that might seem appealing. That doesn’t really mean the product is always safe. You do need to keep that in mind and give it a try for yourself. You can try to test out manufactures with a few sample purchases if you want.
Scammers
Whether you like it or not, this type of thing happens. Fraudulent sellers will always exist on any platform, be it in the United States or China, or anywhere in the world of that matter. That does not mean every supplier is like that. The truth is that you’re interacting with them online, and at first they all seem trustworthy. It’s only when you actually work with them a few times until you realize how good they actually are. That’s why testing and seeing how they work and what value they provide is very important. It will end up being worth it, but it will take a bit of time.
Low Prices but Huge Shipping Fees
This one appears pretty often, and that’s because they want to offer you a very good price point to start with. Otherwise you will not be interested in their offer. However, many suppliers come with some huge price points to the point where they will charge you a massive shipping fee. That’s not because the shipping costs a lot, they just need to recoup their money.
As a result, even if a manufacturers seems to be delivering a tremendous value, more often than not he will end up being expensive if you add shipping to the total costs. You need to realize that these scams exist, whether you like it or not, but with the right approach you will be able to make it work.
Low Price at First
When you see a price lower than the market value, you obviously think it’s a good deal. You want to make the most out of that. The problem with it is that you end up not getting the product you want. Instead, you will find yourself dealing with a problem where you were sucked in by the great price, only to see that whenever you place the order it ends up being higher than anticipated.
It’s a pricing scam that will appear from time to time when you learn how to use Alibaba. The idea here is that once companies learn how to manufacture a product, they do end up saying sometimes that the deal price is not available, but you can get it at a regular price which also seems reduced, even if it’s not. That’s why it makes a lot of sense to avoid suppliers with low prices. You just end up disappointed, and you really want to avoid situations like those.
Selling Infringement or Fake Products
You will find a lot of companies on Alibaba that sell replicates or pretty much fakes inspired by popular products. Of course businesses that see these think they hit the jackpot, but at the end of the day those manufactures will not sell legit products, at least not the ones you expected. It’s important to understand that whenever a deal feels too good to be true, that’s most likely the case. It’s sad to encounter that kind of issue, but it happens and the truth is that you don’t have anything else you can do about this kind of stuff.
Samples are Great, the Final Order is Not
Since many products are manufactured in bulk, you will notice that some sellers will send you defective products. What you need to keep in mind here is that you pay regular pricing for those defective items too, so that’s not really fair. It happens, which is why reading some reviews can help a lot.
We recommend you to take your time and study these dangers of using Alibaba. A lot of sellers dealt with them, so it’s a good idea to learn from their mistakes. This will give you the value and results you want, and in the end it will be well worth the effort.
If you have questions, or want our local team to look into your order or visit your manufacturing partner to make sure everything is being done ethically with quality in mind, please contact us for a free 30 minute consultation.
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