[ULTIMATE GUIDE] Winning Tactics For Finding Manufacturing Companies 1/3

In this multi-part article, our main focus is on suppliers and how to discover them for the goods you wish to market. Our company has extensive experience in sourcing products and assisting clients in sourcing from the United States. We have also assembled a team of specialists who can guide you through the process of sourcing goods from China, considering the widespread interest in Chinese manufacturing.

However, in this particular article, we will delve deeper into the process of sourcing products from America. We will cover three key steps that will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of how to successfully source from the United States. Let's begin our exploration.

The most important steps that you want to know in order to source goods from the best suppliers

Let’s look at some key terms that you surely want to understand when it comes to vendors and purchasing products and all that kind of stuff. There are just a couple that you may already know so this could be a review, but if you are not sure, then check them all.

First key term: PRIVATE LABEL

That is what apparently you will be doing. Most of the people want to be private label business owners. Moreover, that is only the retails name that is used on the product that is sold by the retailer but another company manufactures it.  So you are going to have a private label brand. That means that you are going to sell products that you do not manufacture. You might have a custom formulation, or you might have a individual ad campaign going on, but someone else, some other manufacturer is going to be creating the product, you are going to buy it and brand it under a private label. So you will put your label on it, and it is going to be your own brand name, and you are going to be purchasing the right to it from that manufacturer so you can sell it.

Second key term: RESELLER

You need to definitely make sure that you do not buy from a reseller. A Reseller is a person or a company that buys goods or services with the intention of selling rather than consuming or using them. So they do not actually make the things, and they are just reselling them. Also, you want to make sure that when you are buying from anyone, that this is the actual company or person that makes the product or manufacture the product.

Third key term: WHOLESALER

A wholesaler is a kind of like a reseller except for that they buy an enormous quantity of goods from various producers and vendors, and they warehouse them, and they resell them to retailers. They are selling B to B (B2B) or business to business, which means that they are selling to you and you are selling B to C (B2C) which means business to consumer. A wholesale is great if you cannot find a manufacturer and there is just no way for you to find the actual person that makes to a product that you can buy from then you can go to a wholesaler. However, it is much better if you can purchase your product directly from a manufacturer and that is a company or person who makes the product. So your manufacturer can be a person in the backyard in Minnesota who hand make soaps or might be a factory in China that makes the cell phone cases that you are selling – whoever it is, they are actually making the product.

Third key term: MOQ (Minimum order quantity)

This specifies the lowest quantity of a certain product that a manufacturer or supplier is willing to sell, we will focus more on that later, when I show you how to do the research for American suppliers. (Of course, we have Chinese sourcing experts, and we will write more information about sourcing from China in following articles, and MOQ is important in both of those types of sourcing). The MOQ is essentially the minimal amount that the supplier will sell you if you want to buy the products as a private label. Which means that you are going to purchase it in bulk, you will put your logo in it, and put it in your box and put your brand. So after doing all of this then what is the minimal amount that the supplier will sell you. This is a crucial thing to know when you are looking for a supplier.

Those are the main key terms that you want to understand. It is nothing too special, but it is important to know those key terms.

From Where To Start With Suppliers?

Now let’s move one and see from where to start depending on the product type that you are looking for. So what is the country you should start in essentially? Most of the time you want to start in the USA or China, when it comes to sourcing your products.

IS YOR PRODUCT GOING IN OR ON YOUR BODY?

If your product is like a typical cream of some kind, perhaps a beauty product, or let's say injectable of some kind, probably some food product or maybe coffee or a supplement, then you usually want to source that stuff in the US.

‍IS YOUR PRODUCT REQUIRING USA CERTIFICATION (FDA, ETC.)?

If your products is like some kind of medical device or some supplement like food for human and animals (which is, by the way, a big market) those products often have an FDA or other regulatory necessities for you to be able to sell them. Then you manufacturer is going to need all of those certifications and regulations in which case you probably want your product to be made in the US.‍

IF YOU ARE GETTING RAW MATERIALS THAT ARE NATIVE TO THE USA OR THE COUNTRY THAT YOU ARE GOING TO SELL

If your products include some raw materials that are native to the USA (or the country that you are going to sell), then you probably want to start your search in the USA, although you can get some stuff that’s made in another country that is native material to the USA and sometimes that does happen. Start elsewhere in the world if the raw materials are native to the location that you want to sell your products. Let us take for example Peru where you can source your macro powder. Alternatively look in Japan, for example, there you can source your Japanese Brand Cosmetics. You can also source your cow milk in Bulgaria or other country and so on.

‍IF YOU WANT TO MAKE "MADE IN (YOUR OWN COUNTRY)" SELLING POINT - Example: "Made in USA"

‍If that is a big thing for you and then you want a product that is made in the country that you are going to be selling. Especially important if this selling point is valuable for your market, then it is going to give you some sales benefits. For example, there are people who sell American perfumes that are made in the USA, and that is a big selling point for them. So If you want to do “made in the USA (or your own country)” selling point, then you need to make them in the country that you live in or that you want to sell the product.‍

IF YOUR PRODUCT IS MADE FROM PLASTIC, PROBABLY YOU NEED TO START SOURCING IN CHINA

Probably you already know that China produces most of the worlds plastic products and it is likely to be the world's factory, and that is neither good nor bad, it is just a description of the way the things have gone over the last several decays. So if you start looking at the labels of the products that you are purchasing in almost every country you will probably see that many things are made in China.‍

IS YOUR PRODUCT NOT OVERLY COMPLEX TO CREATE?‍

If your product is a real simple type of product, like a Water Bottle, for example, it is very likely that this product is going to be sourced in China and you will surely find people who are already making it in China.‍

IS YOUR PRODUCT CHEAP - UNDER $20 RETAIL PRICE?

‍If your product is inexpensive product and if it is under $20 retail, you will probably go to China for that. Moreover, those are just some general directions on where to start thinking about sourcing or where you need to be thinking based on what type of product you are selling.‍

To be continued in part 2...