Alibaba suppliers have many tricks to get your attention or ignore your quote requests. In this video, I will share 5 secrets that you must know to get their response and better protection for your money!
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Full Transcript:
Welcome to the GoodLife Warrior podcast. I’m Yuping. We make sourcing easy, fun, and profitable for your business. This episode was originally aired as a video on my YouTube channel, youtube.com/goodlifewarrior. As always, high-quality, professional sourcing content delivered to you with passion and my unique Chinese accent. Enjoy.
Hello, Sourcing Warriors. I hope your day is fantastic. Today it’s all about secrets. Not your secrets, but the Alibaba suppliers’ secrets. We’ve got to know to use it to our advantage. This is the right thing to do because according to the Art of War, know yourself, know your enemy so that we can win the battle. Let’s get started. Are you subscribed to the Good Life Warrior channel? If you are, I thank you. If you’re not, that’s fine too. Good Life Warrior channel is a happy place to learn high-quality sourcing content. Whether you are subscribed or not subscribed, I’m just happy that I can help you learn something to enrich your mind and your spirit.
Talking about spirit, I really encourage you to keep your sourcing mindset positive. I know it could get really stressful, but it’s important to keep that mindset because a positive mindset is a lot more flexible and creative, and as a person, yourself, is more likable by your suppliers. Now, let’s run through the good, bad, and ugly Alibaba supplier secrets and see how we can use it to our advantage. The first secret I think is good for you, good for the buyer, because Alibaba puts some control behind it. The secret is the trade assurance limit. You know a lot of suppliers offer trade assurance, but not all of them have the same amount of trade assurance limit.
What is it? Alibaba decides the trade assurance limit for each supplier based on the supplier’s past transaction history. If their volume, their sales volume is high that means the trade assurance limit is high. What does this mean to you? If you place your purchase order, you just need to make sure your PO value is within the supplier’s trade assurance limit.
Now you’re wondering, “Where do I find my supplier’s trade assurance limit?” Let me show you. Here we are. Let me say I’m looking for this baby diaper changing pad. We click on search. Now we’re looking for an interesting supplier. Say this supplier is quite interesting, all I have to do is to click on their supplier name. Once I’m on the supplier profile, I just need to hover over the trade assurance, and then I can see their trade assurance limit is $459,000. All we have to make sure is to place the purchase order within this limit. Simple like that.
Second supplier secret, one supplier, multiple stores. Have you ever run into this situation? Is this bad? Is this a scam? Well, it’s not a scam. Alibaba allows one business license to have multiple stores. The reason is that one company could have multiple product lines. For example, if I’m looking for a baby diaper changing pad, the same supplier may have the waterproof, fireproof, so they allow the same supplier have multiple stores to match up your product search. When you run into this situation, don’t think it’s a scam. I think it’s a good thing, it shows the supplier’s financial strength and it’s legal to do listings like this on Alibaba.
Secret number three is no longer a secret, but worth mentioning because a lot of beginners still don’t know, that is low price bait. When you are looking for a product on Alibaba.com you will see the price listed on their page is not true at all, it’s a low price to bait you to inquire about their product. This is such bad business practice, I think. I think Alibaba should put some rules around it so that makes customer research more efficient, instead of constantly have to contact the supplier, find the true price.
Secret number four, trade assurance does not assure a refund. Just because you place your purchase order through trade assurance, it does not guarantee you a 100% refund. When you place the purchase order you need to make sure your product specification, your purchase terms, and conditions are clearly defined through trade assurance. When you get into a dispute with your supplier, you’ve got to be able to provide evidence to Alibaba. Alibaba will be the judge to see if your document is strong in order to judge that the case is winning to your side and therefore give you the refund. I have seen so many buyers lose the case because they couldn’t provide clear documentation, and then they complain that the supplier didn’t produce the product to their satisfaction. If you’ve got nothing to prove, then you’re not going to get your money back.
Secret number five is very, very important for you to know if you are buying from Alibaba. The secret is the RFQ limit. Not the limit on you, you can send as many RFQs as you wish, 10, 30, maybe 1000 per month to ask the suppliers to give you a quote. But the supplier has a limit in terms of how many RFQs they can respond to per month. As of right now, every supplier has about 30. What this means to you is when you send out your quote request, you’ve got to be super careful, making sure that your quote request looking clean, looking professional so the supplier cares to respond to your RFQ. If you send out those casual messages, no wonder the supplier doesn’t even want to waste time talking to you because they have only 30 RFQ that they can respond to. So they got to be choosing the one that looks serious and meaningful to their business.
If you need help on the RFQ, you can find the template in Sourcing Warrior’s Quote Master and in the Sourcing Warrior Mastermind. The template that I have prepared for the students, I think, is one of the best templates you can find. I have put so much thought into the RFQ message and the quote package. I think it’s going to help you make a difference to get more response and get more attention and get a better price when you send out your RFQ to your suppliers. Remember, the supplier may use a low price to bait you into clicking on their product. They may have multiple stores, which is not a bad thing. Their trade assurance has a limit, make sure you check before you place your order. The trade assurance transaction is not guaranteed unless you do your part. And finally, the suppliers are choosy on whose RFQ they respond to because they have a limit every single month on how many RFQs they can respond to.
I hope you loved this video. If you appreciate what I shared with you, like the video or comment on the video. I appreciate that. Once again, I wish you a fantastic day. Keep that mindset, stay positive. There’s nothing more beautiful than a positive mindset. I hope you enjoy today, I’ll see you in the next episode.
Check out the link, the Sourcing Warrior Mastermind link, undertake Sourcing Warrior’s quiz to find out your sourcing IQ. Make it fun, learn something, have a great day. I’ll see you in the next episode.
