Benefits of Working with a China Sourcing Agent

The terms sourcing specialist and sourcing agent refer to the same thing. Regardless of whether you're working with either, you'll get help finding a supplier, lowering manufacturing costs, and streamlining your supply chain.

The primary role of a sourcing specialist is to help businesses connect with better suppliers that can reduce manufacturing costs without compromising quality. Specifically, you can expect a sourcing specialist to:

• Help find a supplier, if you don't have one.
• Help find a better supplier more suited to the needs of your business.
• Streamline your supply chain to lower costs.
• Communicate directly with the factory on your behalf.
• Manage the sampling process.
• Supervise quality control during production.
• Troubleshoot production issues.
• Organize air or sea freight shipping.
• Take lead on making sure your products clear customs, including preparing all required paperwork.

As you might expect, it takes a high level of expertise to offer these services if you want to work with a supplier in China. We'd love to talk to you about what you should be looking for, and if our services aren't a good match for your needs, we can help you find a sourcing specialist that is a match.

There are several ways you can find a sourcing agent or sourcing specialist to help you work with a China-based supplier:

Referrals
One of the easiest ways to find a sourcing specialist is to ask other businesses that you know work with China-based factories. While it's not a guarantee that they work with a sourcing specialist, they might, and it would be a good place to start shopping.

Online Searching
‍A simple Google search will pull up a lot of options for sourcing agents, but that doesn't mean they are all going to be a good choice for you. You'll want to take time to vet sourcing specialists, just like you would when looking for a supplier. Some factors to consider when looking for a sourcing agent online include:

• Location: You don't want a sourcing specialist that doesn't operate in the country you want to source from
• Experience: You'll take a huge risk working with a sourcing specialist that is brand new
• References: Does this choice have a track record of success with other businesses?
• Language Support: A sourcing specialist that isn't truly bilingual will struggle to provide the best support.
• Services: Not all sourcing specialists offer the same kinds of services.

Ask Kanary!
We love helping businesses, but we only take clients that we think will benefit from our services. You can reach out to us with your specific business needs, and if we don't think we'd be a good fit, we can point you in the right direction of other reputable sourcing specialists that may be a better fit for your business.

Sourcing specialists have a variety of ways to locate suppliers, but since we know ourselves best, let's talk about how Kanary finds suppliers for our clients:

Established Contacts
Kanary has been forming relationships with China-based suppliers for years, so we already have a vetted list of trusted suppliers that we love to work with. We'll pull from this group of suppliers if we think that they're a good match for what you're looking for. We do not get kickbacks from factories, so we're free to select suppliers based on quality alone.

Alibaba and Similar Platforms
Alibaba is a B2B online platform where businesses can shop for China-based suppliers. Often, we'll have a client whose needs can't be met by our vetted suppliers, so we'll put in the legwork to make a connection with a new supplier that's a good match. We know the positive signs of a quality supplier, as well as the red flags of problematic suppliers to avoid.

Alibaba isn't the only platform to find suppliers, so we'll use several sites to find a large pool of candidates (usually 20-25), and then we'll whittle down those options based on your needs, budget, and the quality of the supplier.

Not all sourcing specialists can help with prototype sourcing, but Kanary can! We've helped several businesses connect with suppliers that have the capacity to manufacture brand new, novel products, and we help businesses navigate the process of creating a prototype. Some of those steps include:

• Delivering designs to the manufacturer
• Shipping the 3D printed prototype
• Helping a factory mold be developed, and negotiating with suppliers on your behalf
• Organizing the sampling process to make sure that products meet your quality standards

If you need a prototype developed, or if you need to customize an existing product, Kanary can help find the perfect supplier for your business.

This question can only be answered by your specific business, but for the clients that Kanary helps, the answer is an overwhelming yes. You may be in a similar spot as many of our clients were, and a sourcing specialist may be worth it if your business has any of the following qualities:

• Little to no experience working directly with factories
• Little to no experience working with suppliers based in China
• Lack of in-house expertise regarding streamlining your supply chain
• Little to no experience searching for, vetting, and choosing new suppliers
• If you are dissatisfied with your current China-based supplier but don't have the expertise to negotiate costs or find a new supplier
• Lack of in-house bilingual support for English and Mandarin Chinese

We take the guesswork out of finding a supplier, improve product quality, and streamline the overall supply chain process. On average, we are able to save our clients a minimum of 20% while improving operations, which definitely makes working with a sourcing specialist like Kanary worth it.

They can! Sourcing specialists that help businesses ship products (like Kanary) will also help to ensure that you have the proper customs paperwork ready so you avoid common headaches when your products reach port. Some of this documentation includes:

• Bill of Lading
• Packing invoice
• Commercial invoice
• Appropriate HTS codes

A sourcing specialist will also work with your customs broker so you can have a true, hands-off experience when your order begins to work its way through the customs process. Keep in mind, though, that partnering with a sourcing specialist or customs broker is not a guarantee you'll avoid customs issues, but it can reduce the likelihood of problems.

Businesses do not have to use a sourcing specialist to work with China-based suppliers. In fact, you don't even have to use platforms like Alibaba if you already have an existing connection with a supplier in China that you trust, can easily communicate with, and who can meet your business needs.

However, the vast majority of businesses just getting started on working with China-based suppliers likely won't have this kind of easy, trustworthy connection. At the very least, you'll need to use a platform like Alibaba to find a supplier (and Alibaba offers certain buyer protections through their Trade Assurance program), or you can use a sourcing specialist, like Kanary.

Yes! Kanary helps businesses with consolidated shipping on a regular basis. It's one of the easiest ways to reduce costs without having to change anything about the manufacturing process of your product.

If you're unfamiliar, consolidated shipping is the process of waiting to ship large volume orders until an entire shipping container can be filled. While it requires more effort and planning, especially if you are coordinating between multiple suppliers, filling an entire container has enormous benefits, including:

• Drastically lower shipping fees (it's far less expensive to fill one container than to use two partially filled containers)
• Easier customs process
• Easier unloading process after customs is cleared

If at all possible, consolidated shipping should be used, and sourcing specialists like Kanary can take the lead in making it happen.

Yes! Sourcing specialists, including Kanary, can help businesses organize sea freight shipping for businesses who are using China-based suppliers. It is much better to use a sourcing specialist to help with sea freight shipping than to allow the supplier to organize shipment themselves.

It's common for a sourcing specialist to use Alibaba to find suppliers for clients, including Kanary. This is because even if a supplier has a list of trusted factories, they may not be able to meet the specific needs of a particular business. Kanary regularly uses Alibaba to find suppliers for clients, and it's a common practice throughout the industry.

The best thing to do is to ask a sourcing specialist if they can provide a net benefit to your company. For example, Kanary saves customers at least 20% on average, so even if businesses are struggling with their China-based supply partner, they may still get huge benefits from partnering with one.

In general, there are some common qualities of businesses that likely need to use a sourcing specialist, which includes businesses that:

• Don't have experience connecting with China-based suppliers
• Don't have the resources to dedicate full-time attention to communicating with, negotiating with, and managing factories
• Don't or are unable to have a physical presence in China
• Don't have experience working directly with factories
• Lack bilingual staff (it's very important that you have someone fluent in Mandarin Chinese on your staff)
• Know they want to take advantage of consolidated shipping, but don't have the time or resources to do it themselves

We would love to talk to you about how our services can make your life easier and can save you money.

Kanary has some unique qualities that most sourcing specialist won't be able to match:

• Physical Presence in the U.S.A. and China: We have physical locations in both the U.S. and China. That makes it easy to connect with us and consistently communicate with our domestic clients and with our China-based supply partners.
• Fully Bilingual: We are fully bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese, allowing us to facilitate clear communication between our clients and our suppliers
• Supply Chain Experts: We have years of experience working with clients to streamline their supply chain to reduce costs without sacrificing quality.
• One-Stop-Shop: We can help with anything your business needs regarding sourcing products, including finding suppliers, managing suppliers, shipping products, creating custom products, developing prototypes, and anything else you may need.

Your sourcing specialist doesn't have to be bilingual, but they really should be. One of the benefits of partnering with a sourcing specialist is that they can clearly communicate with you, and can clearly communicate your needs to your chosen supplier.

If there's a language barrier in either direction of communication, it can spell problems down the road when production begins.

Yes! Partnering with a sourcing specialist doesn't mean that you have to change suppliers. In fact, an experienced sourcing specialist, like Kanary, can help you save on costs even with a supplier that you have an existing relationship with. We can help by:

• Negotiating better terms that benefits both you and the supplier
• Improve product quality with an existing supplier
• Streamline the entire supply chain, from the supplier all the way to the final delivery destination

We help businesses save on every aspect of their supply chain, not just in finding and managing a supplier.

Sourcing specialists usually have an "ideal" business in mind that fits their expertise. This could be specific business sizes, or even specific industries. For Kanary, we tend to partner with medium sized companies or small companies experiencing high levels of growth. However, we like to talk with businesses to really determine if we're a good match.

Kanary will also source products for any industry, since our expertise is sourcing, not sourcing for a specific industry. Some example of past industries we've sourced products for includes:

• Healthcare, like masks and hand sanitizer dispensers
• Construction materials, like artificial grass and flooring
• Packaging, like box packaging, glass containers, and plastic bag packing
• Agricultural products, like greenhouse materials
• Commercial machinery, like chocolate enrobing machines, flow wrap machines, shrink wrap machines, and vertical weighing and packing machines
• Remember, we can source any product, just as long as your business size and structure is a good fit for our services.

While they may seem similar at first, the differences between sourcing specialists and dropshipping agents is significant. Dropshipping agents cater more to B2C businesses that focus on direct-to-customer fulfillment, helping those businesses to receive and fulfill customer orders. Dropshipping agents may help businesses source products, but they cater specifically to dropshipping businesses.

Sourcing specialists, on the other hand, can offer assistance to any model of business. If you operate a dropshipping store (or other direct-to-consumer fulfillment model), a sourcing specialist can still help you connect with a supplier and a fulfillment warehouse.

For businesses that use domestic warehouses, or need products required for business operations (like machinery or building materials), sourcing specialists can also help. In addition to finding ideal suppliers, they can help ensure a streamlined shipping experience, including offering consolidated shipping.

If you're curious about a more in-depth explanation of the differences between sourcing specialists and dropshipping agents, we've written an extensive article explaining the nuanced differences.

Yes! In fact, businesses that have unusual products with unique shipping requirements should look to an experienced sourcing specialist for help. There's a lot that can go wrong with shipping fragile or hazardous materials, and Kanary's expertise will shine when difficult products need to be sourced.

Our services also shine with products that are hard to find or hard to manufacture. We know how to find suppliers, even for difficult-to-make goods, and we can leverage our expertise to give you the best pricing and the best quality. We strongly encourage businesses that have had difficulty finding an appropriate, China-based supplier to contact us for assistance.