The existence of traders and sourcing agents is because of the fact there are numerous manufacturers who vary within the capability of export, knowledge of the worldwide market, domestic business performances and foreign language skills, etc. The worldwide market demands a role to bridge the space between international buyers and manufacturers. However, while there are countless buyers (consciously or unconsciously) dealing with trading companies, some buyers in particular those with specific technical requirement prefer to hire China Sourcing Agent. How come they shift from traders to a sourcing agent or sometimes not even directly cope with a manufacturer?
With an excellent sourcing agent, the buyer’s interests are fully enacted in a very controlled manner. Firstly, with someone getting deep to the factories, the buyer features a better control of the development, delivery and after-sale service, and that he could make sure each of the followup information he receives is valid and proved. Secondly and even more importantly, the sourcing agent can jointly or independently learn suppliers information and negotiate using the suppliers without the motivation to win a purchase or sell a particular product. Therefore, the customer is more likely to be able to look for a more desirable product because he does not get confused from the exaggerated or perhaps untrue descriptions from the trader or manufacturer.
The absence of professionalism in sourcing agents is a huge concern for many global buyers, it really has been a so controversial issue that folks have heated debate over the pros and cons of hiring a sourcing agent. Numerous buying offices and sourcing agents themselves tend to accuse the conduct of taking kickbacks, and after accomplishing this they shift the buyers’ focus on their very own services and advertise that they may never make use of this unethical behavior. However, it should be admitted that all of them are in essence agents, and they are all prone to belong to this lapse, but couple of them shed much light on answers to this issue. The issue is actually as a result of human nature. For instance, a number of them could have mixed feelings whenever they provide the quotations with their clients, they might ask themselves, “I came across so amazing a supplier for my client, plus they get so excellent price, shouldn’t I deserve some thing?” “The packaging and shipping cost me a lot, and it took us a a large amount of effort in speaking with this supplier, should i work for my clients simply to make ends meet?”
A standard practice is the fact that some suppliers willingly give sourcing consultants or translators an amount of hidden commission in order to win an order or the latter asks for kickbacks through the suppliers, however, this practice is not only unethical and unprofessional, but also practically unsustainable, because although unlikely in the future the suppliers could tell the truth to the buyer, the sourcing agent would find himself a mere tool for that suppliers and, worse, end up being no long trusted by the client.
A sourcing agent provides the purchaser with full information about registration details, official documents, latest photos and written reports about the factory including offices, production lines, warehouses, quality control station, lab equipment, etc to gain access to the factory’s qualifications, credibility, production capacity and technical expertise. But traders nmnwti send any data for the buyer or perhaps claim these are manufacturers of the product, while the truth is they may not be technically sound or have enough production capacity.
An excellent sourcing agent is really a person with sound English fluency and understanding, general technical knowledge, business assessment, logistics, product design and global perspective. He could work perfectly on the part of the purchaser to access suppliers, negotiate the price and terms, do trouble-shooting, order follow-up, coordinate in urgent times, lastly, boost the business relationship with the supplier.
In the first place, sourcing agents or representatives usually work in a smaller team or just work alone, while trading companies operate in bigger offices with multiple departments. The result will be the expenditures burdened by the latter are much heavier. However, a greater reason is definitely the conflict of interests in between the trader as well as the buyer, the trader will never share the manufacturer’s information (contact, original price) using the buyers for fear that the buyer could skip the trader and deal directly with the original supplier, in all cases, the trader strikes a deal with all the buyers with a hidden and highest margin, whilst the China Buying Agent works for the purchaser in a clear-set service fees. Along with the cost factor, the price the buyer could easily get from a trader is much more than the fees he must pay a sourcing agent.
