These days, it is common to come across items that have a ‘Made in China’ tag with them. Besides, China has the world’s second-largest economy as they are just second to the United States. The country manufactures a wide variety of products so you have a lot to choose from like footwear, toys, and even cosmetics. China is the leader in the world when it comes to a place where you can source products because the prices are cheap and the quality is pretty good. In fact, there are most likely some companies that get products from China and you are probably not aware of that.
Getting into the business of sourcing products from China is not easy. However, hiring a China sourcing agent would make the job a lot easier than it sounds. Yes, the product sourcing agent would find out the best products for you and even try to haggle a lower price since they speak fluent Chinese. The agent can be a person or a company and they would come in handy especially if you are trying to source multiple products or you don’t have any previous experience of doing this.
You won’t even have a problem communicating with China sourcing agents since they speak perfect English. The agent will also verify the supplier for you so that you won’t have to use Google Translate in order to read Chinese reviews. Of course, they do it for a living so you would need to pay them. Just how exactly are China sourcing agents earning?
One-time Payment
There are times when the agent would just require a payment that will be made to them just once. Of course, you won’t have to deal with the China sourcing agent after you’ve already secured a supplier. Hence, paying them in order to get it over with would be a good idea. You just need to make sure that it is all in writing so that the agent won’t try and get more money in the future. Even if the product sourcing agent looks trustworthy, you never really know what would happen in the coming weeks so you just need to be sure.
Commission
It is possible the sourcing agent will charge you a commission depending on the overall price of the product that you are sourcing. Yes, it can be said that you will most likely negotiate with the China sourcing agent for a while until you would both agree on the final percentage. It is actually normal for the agents to charge 5 to 10% commission especially when they see that the transactions are pretty huge. Whether you would agree to that type of payment would be up to you. It would actually be a wise move as long as they don’t charge anything else. Like the above option, make sure that everything is in writing so you don’t end up getting scammed by a third party hoping to enter the fray.
Monthly Recurring Fee
There are many things you can make the sourcing agent do like telling your requirements to the supplier on a monthly basis. If you think you would need to hire them for several months or even years, then they may charge you a monthly recurring fee. Of course, that would depend on how often you do business with them. it is quite possible they would charge an hourly rate especially if they have a lot of other clients. If they do that, they can just compute for the amount that you owe them then charge you at the end of each month.
In conclusion, you should decide on the best way to pay the China sourcing agent. Keep in mind that you should assign the right amount of budget for the agent since you get what you pay for. After all, you won’t have to worry about a lot of things that are needed for your business to prosper thanks to the sourcing agent. Paying them would be your best way of saying thank you to them for all the work that they did for you. It is possible to engage them in talks that would allow you to pay them on an installment basis but there are no guarantees.
Bonus: How did you find the Chinese sourcing agents?
- Facebook group. There are many active private sourcing agents in drop shipping groups on facebook.
- If you have friends in China, you can ask them to help you find reliable sourcing agents, because of language, time difference and other factors, it will be easier for them to know whether these agents are reliable or not.
- Google, bing and other search engines will also help you find many sourcing agents.
- If you want to find China dropshipping agents, we list top 9 here.
