To continue the subject regarding China Sourcing, today I would like share some experience with regard to “Make Enquiry & Respond”, in this article you might find the answer why the enquiry response rate is so LOW for buyers and why it’s so DIFFICULT to win a new customer for suppliers!

As a sourcing agent, making enquiry is my daily work; in the viewpoint of supplier, that sounds like an easy job – searching suppliers on B2B websites and sending enquiry emails, then you would receive hundreds of quotations from suppliers! Hmm, it sounds pretty like that, but actually it doesn’t work like that …. This process is much more frustrating than you expect. 

To give you a better demonstration, I am giving you one example of my recent sourcing on a well-known B2B website. Due to the urgency of customer’s request, I need to find a qualified supplier within a week (tight & difficult), so I have to reply on the most common known B2B website (it’s quick and direct I have to say in some cases), in the first 2 days, I have found around 20 suppliers (both “manufacturers” & “trading companies”) who look “good-fit” to what we were looking for, then I would do the to-do list below:

• To generate a decent enquiry (a polite email with proper Enquiry Form contains spec. / packing req. / order qty etc.), I have to say a good Enquiry Form would decide how much attention you will get from suppliers.
• To make a phone call to all potential and get a specific contact details (contact person / email / contact no.), it might be hard for overseas buyers, but this is very useful to access a RIGHT contact person!! In many cases, you will never receive a reply from suppliers’ info or sales email; or you will get it very LATE. 
• After getting a valid contact, sending enquiry by EMAIL. Maybe some buyers prefer to use instant massagers (WhatsApp, WeChat etc.), to avoid misunderstanding or unnecessary risks, you’d better NOT.

After doing above, in the next 2 days I had received 14 replies (including some quick replies like “Yes, well received and will get back to you ASAP”), the response rate is 70%; while within these 14 replies, 2 of them said NO (they do not make), 3 of them just gave a quick reply (get back ASAP, but no more reply), 6 of them had a lot of “questions” before trying to quote (while many of those questions that I had already provided in the enquiry form), only 3 of them (21%) could quote straight away. To be very honest, this outcome doesn’t surprise me at all, and comparing to the traditional RFQ (request for quotation) way (only sending emails or message), this response rate (70%) is not bad already.

Why the RFQ response rate is that LOW? Why the attention from suppliers is that little? But it’s very strange that many Chinese suppliers are hunger for new customers (orders), and a lot of complaint about how difficult to succeed a new customer. How come??

Base on my own sourcing experience with various of suppliers, gradually I have found out some reasons behind:

1. a Chinese enquiry gets less attention than English one; it sounds unwise but true. It’s sorry to know that some suppliers still prefer the foreign enquiry, so their sales persons judge the enquiry by the customer’s IP address (country) rather than the enquiry quality.

2. small order qty gets less attention; I need to say this really depends on situation if it is a trial order or just one-off order, but unfortunately many suppliers don’t have the patience to GROW with customer, what they need and care more is BIG ORDER.

3. lack of responsibility, in many cases, suppliers tend to quote base on what they know and ignore what customers exactly require; for example, I used to source a special aluminum part which is 6063-T6 grade, this material is a bit unusual as normally this product is made in 6063-T5 (good enough), thus when I received quotations from suppliers, some of them simply quote base on 6063-T5 without mentioning the difference and some quoted base on 6063-T5 even without knowing our requirement; only a few of suppliers had noticed this special request and checked with us first before giving accurate quotation. This point sounds very basic, but actually not many suppliers can do the basic things RIGHT!

4. lack of professionalism, it is very funny that many suppliers declare themselves as professional suppliers in XXX industry, but their behavior are amateur. This usually happens when it comes to technical issues; for example, when I send the technical datasheet (more than 2 pages, full of technical words) to new suppliers, many of them would skip it impatiently, while some of them do not understand the technical requirement, only very a few would study it carefully and bring questions or comments in return. I have to say technical understanding & support is still a big weakness for many sales person, if you don’t know your product well, then you don’t know how to sever your customers neither!

Of course, it could be any other reasons as well, the above are just base on my own experience and understanding. My purpose is not to criticize but suggest suppliers pay more attention to these points, Price & Quality are not the only ways to win new customers!!

To be continue…