SupplierEvaluations Blog on International Trade, Wholesale Supplier and Low Cost Country Sourcing

We continue our discussion about supplier selection process. This time we are going to review the criteria by which you should evaluate suppliers to select the right one. There are many potential criteria, we will focus on major ones:

Reliability, Financial Stability, Quality and Continuous Improvement, Competitive Pricing, On-time delivery, Customer Service and Communication,  Informative and functional Website, Approach to Partnership, Environmental Record, Corporate Social Responsibility. 

If you are a small business and do not have a formal methodology to select suppliers you need at least to be familiar with these criteria.

Most business owners, who truly know  the ins and outs of running a successful enterprise, are constantly working on developing plans – aimed at growing their business and, of course, by extension, their revenues and profit margins. Thanks to today’s fast paced world, it is impossible for any business to stand still – if they do, they die and, of course, looking towards the international markets is definitely the next step in global ownership.

If you are in the business of selecting suppliers, especially from developing countries, UK Customs Office did a lot of work to try and help you. Business Link is an impressive set of guides from export and import basics to specific supplier selection process. Many of the topics are UK specific and deal with UK taxes. But most are general purpose explanations on the topics of starting a business, finance and international trade.

 

As a part of the international trade discussions they provide guides that can be very helpful if you are new to importing goods from overseas. This blog post will focus on a part of supplier selection process. By no means is this a comprehensive guide but it provides a great foundation for someone who is new and has no much experience.

If you are considering broadening your business base to include China, you may want to attend the 2010 Shanghai Exposition, which opened May 1, 2010 and runs through to October 31, 2010. This conference is expected to attract over 70 million attendees, most of whom will consist of business leaders, as well as professionals from around the globe. This historical event will be the first registered World Exposition in a developing country, offering unprecedented access to an overall view of China’s future development and how its people will remain an integral part of a booming market and economy

Suppliers are one eager crowd to get noticed and get new buyers, right? In this world where new factories, trading companies and warehouses pop up every day, India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Brazil – all present both great trading opportunities and sources of supplier fraud.  In this article we’ll talk about some basic due diligence you can do avoid getting scammed and list some tools you can use to do it.