u/ferero18

The fact that I order a sample from a supplier and I'm pleased with the quality isn't an indicator that this is a good supplier. A Big part is whether he can maintain the quality throughout providing a larger number of units, i.e 50+.

How do you handle the sourcing process when it comes to such trust issues - or rather what backup plan do you have in case things go wrong, because it's less a matter of trust but rather what legal backup do I have. I've heard multiple stories about Alibaba not wanting to refund buyers in obvious cases - even when someone had Alibaba Protection or Trade Assurance. I've heard stories about that too, that it doesn't give or do much - even when I entered this subreddit right now - already top posts are some scam stories, and also the fact there's a bunch of trade companies with huge markups not actual manufacturers on Alibaba..

Also - products can be faulty in various ways. It can be a small flaw but a one that has a huge impact on client's experience which will also result in bad reviews and it's considered unsellable stock from a business owner perspective - but maybe considered as "not big enough flaw" from a manfucaturer/Alibaba's perspective to accept return.

Product may even look the same, but be made from different kind of material than the samples I've received, or have different texture - that's hard to prove over just photos. There are 100 scenarios in my head, and logically I can see Alibaba not being keen on any refunds for most of them. Especially when the products are custom i.e with your logo - if you return it to the supplier he can't resell it, it's 100% loss for them, hence I imagine accepting returns must be hard.

Oh - and when it comes to ordering some kind of quality checks from chinese companies before the products are shipped - I was thinking about that too, but with new suppliers I order rather small batches at first of around 50 to 100 units per 1 product, so it doesn't pay off. It pays off with larger volumes like 500+, but if I order 50 it's too big of a cost. Nonetheless it's a good solution to monitor quality once the the volume is bigger.

The fact that I order a sample from a supplier and I'm pleased with the quality isn't an indicator that this is a good supplier. A Big part is whether he can maintain the quality throughout providing a larger number of units, i.e 50+

How do you handle the sourcing process when it comes to such trust issues - or rather what backup plan do you have in case things go wrong, because it's less a matter of trust but rather what legal backup do I have. I've heard multiple stories about Alibaba not wanting to refund buyers in obvious cases - even when someone had Alibaba Protection or Trade Assurance. I've heard stories about that too, that it doesn't give or do much - even when I entered this subreddit right now - already top posts are some scam stories, and also the fact there's a bunch of trade companies with huge markups not actual manufacturers on Alibaba..

Also - products can be faulty in various ways. It can be a small flaw but a one that has a huge impact on client's experience which will also result in bad reviews and it's considered unsellable stock from a business owner perspective - but maybe considered as "not big enough flaw" from a manfucaturer/Alibaba's perspective to accept return.

Product may even look the same, but be made from different kind of material than the samples I've received, or have different texture - that's hard to prove over just photos. There are 100 scenarios in my head, and logically I can see Alibaba not being keen on any refunds for most of them. Especially when the products are custom i.e with your logo - if you return it to the supplier he can't resell it, it's 100% loss for them, hence I imagine accepting returns must be hard.

Oh - and when it comes to ordering some kind of quality checks from chinese companies before the products are shipped - I was thinking about that too, but with new suppliers I order rather small batches at first of around 50 to 100 units per 1 product, so it doesn't pay off. It pays off with larger volumes like 500+, but if I order 50 it's too big of a cost. Nonetheless it's a good solution to monitor quality once the the volume is bigger.

Where the products that are making money come from, exact suppliers, and know-how in that area is basically a krabby patty formula - at least in my eyes. Can anybody share some light on how it's usually done in companies when it comes to delegating the product sourcing to a worker, because the only thought in my head is "he knows all my suppliers and can pretty much copy my products almost 1:1".

With big companies that are already established etc. I imagine workers think less of taking advantage of such sensitive data because it's harder to compete if one would try to copy the products and sell them- but small e-commerce businesses that have 3-10 employees? I was a part of such small team for example as an e-commerce specialist, and the owner was handling all 100% of sourcing, and all logistics from China up to Europe, papers etc, because of this simple issue. And I know from him that it took a looot of his time during the week, which he could use to actually grow the company more and not do repeatable tasks.

The reason I'm asking this, because I care about delegating the most work so that I, maybe in the bright, bright future can just be "the owner" that pops in from time to time, while my job is handled 90% by my team, with e-com director at the top doing basically what I should be doing as the owner - or just delegate all my e-com operations to a marketing agency.

And here's the issue - I can think of delegating almost everything, every area, every task, except one, super crucial, the most important part - the sourcing, and hence this post, my questions and my deep worries. That the worker I hire will copy my business - because truth be told once you know how to get the same products that are already selling and you know exactly where to sell them...well why work for someone else if you already have what you need?

People used to ask me that "dude, if you can handle all of this e-commerce stuff for other people and know how to grow sales from 0 do X, why won't you start selling yourself?" - because creating and sourcing good products is a whole, giant subject which is very hard to get a grasp on. The e-commerce part is not that hard, at least when it comes to marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, ebay etc, you outsource product images, chatGPT does the text content, and you can learn ads on Youtube easily - I did that, it's much simpler than it looks. Or maybe it's just simple for me because I'm already in the niche for a few years, idk.

Sorry for a long post, I just talk a lot. If anyone has some real-life experience on this topic please let me know - or if you have any general advice - thanks in advance if you came this far.

Where the products that are making money come from, exact suppliers, and know-how in that area is basically a krabby patty formula - at least in my eyes. Can anybody share some light on how it's usually done in companies when it comes to delegating the product sourcing to a worker, because the only thought in my head is "he knows all my suppliers and can pretty much copy my products almost 1:1".

With big companies that are already established etc. I imagine workers think less of taking advantage of such sensitive data because it's harder to compete if one would try to copy the products and sell them- but small e-commerce businesses that have 3-10 employees? I was a part of such small team for example as an e-commerce specialist, and the owner was handling all 100% of sourcing, and all logistics from China up to Europe, papers etc, because of this simple issue. And I know from him that it took a looot of his time during the week, which he could use to actually grow the company more and not do repeatable tasks.

The reason I'm asking this, because I care about delegating the most work so that I, maybe in the bright, bright future can just be "the owner" that pops in from time to time, while my job is handled 90% by my team, with e-com director at the top doing basically what I should be doing as the owner - or just delegate all my e-com operations to a marketing agency.

And here's the issue - I can think of delegating almost everything, every area, every task, except one, super crucial, the most important part - the sourcing, and hence this post, my questions and my deep worries. That the worker I hire will copy my business - because truth be told once you know how to get the same products that are already selling and you know exactly where to sell them...well why work for someone else if you already have what you need?

People used to ask me that "dude, if you can handle all of this e-commerce stuff for other people and know how to grow sales from 0 do X, why won't you start selling yourself?" - because creating and sourcing good products is a whole, giant subject which is very hard to get a grasp on. The e-commerce part is not that hard, at least when it comes to marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, ebay etc, you outsource product images, chatGPT does the text content, and you can learn ads on Youtube easily - I did that, it's much simpler than it looks. Or maybe it's just simple for me because I'm already in the niche for a few years, idk.

Sorry for a long post, I just talk a lot. If anyone has some real-life experience on this topic please let me know - or if you have any general advice - thanks in advance if you came this far.

Where the products that are making money come from, exact suppliers, and know-how in that area is basically a krabby patty formula - at least in my eyes. Can anybody share some light on how it's usually done in companies when it comes to delegating the product sourcing to a worker, because the only thought in my head is "he knows all my suppliers and can pretty much copy my products almost 1:1".

With big companies that are already established etc. I imagine workers think less of taking advantage of such sensitive data because it's harder to compete if one would try to copy the products and sell them- but small e-commerce businesses that have 3-10 employees? I was a part of such small team for example as an e-commerce specialist, and the owner was handling all 100% of sourcing, and all logistics from China up to Europe, papers etc, because of this simple issue. And I know from him that it took a looot of his time during the week, which he could use to actually grow the company more and not do repeatable tasks.

The reason I'm asking this, because I care about delegating the most work so that I, maybe in the bright, bright future can just be "the owner" that pops in from time to time, while my job is handled 90% by my team, with e-com director at the top doing basically what I should be doing as the owner - or just delegate all my e-com operations to a marketing agency.

And here's the issue - I can think of delegating almost everything, every area, every task, except one, super crucial, the most important part - the sourcing, and hence this post, my questions and my deep worries. That the worker I hire will copy my business - because truth be told once you know how to get the same products that are already selling and you know exactly where to sell them...well why work for someone else if you already have what you need?

People used to ask me that "dude, if you can handle all of this e-commerce stuff for other people and know how to grow sales from 0 do X, why won't you start selling yourself?" - because creating and sourcing good products is a whole, giant subject which is very hard to get a grasp on. The e-commerce part is not that hard, at least when it comes to marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, ebay etc, you outsource product images, chatGPT does the text content, and you can learn ads on Youtube easily - I did that, it's much simpler than it looks. Or maybe it's just simple for me because I'm already in the niche for a few years, idk.

Sorry for a long post, I just talk a lot. If anyone has some real-life experience on this topic please let me know - or if you have any general advice - thanks in advance if you came this far.

Where the products that are making money come from, exact suppliers, and know-how in that area is basically a krabby patty formula - at least in my eyes. Can anybody share some light on how it's usually done in companies when it comes to delegating the product sourcing to a worker, because the only thought in my head is "he knows all my suppliers and can pretty much copy my products almost 1:1".

With big companies that are already established etc. I imagine workers think less of taking advantage of such sensitive data because it's harder to compete if one would try to copy the products and sell them- but small e-commerce businesses that have 3-10 employees? I was a part of such small team for example as an e-commerce specialist, and the owner was handling all 100% of sourcing, and all logistics from China up to Europe, papers etc, because of this simple issue. And I know from him that it took a looot of his time during the week, which he could use to actually grow the company more and not do repeatable tasks.

The reason I'm asking this, because I care about delegating the most work so that I, maybe in the bright, bright future can just be "the owner" that pops in from time to time, while my job is handled 90% by my team, with e-com director at the top doing basically what I should be doing as the owner - or just delegate all my e-com operations to a marketing agency.

And here's the issue - I can think of delegating almost everything, every area, every task, except one, super crucial, the most important part - the sourcing, and hence this post, my questions and my deep worries. That the worker I hire will copy my business - because truth be told once you know how to get the same products that are already selling and you know exactly where to sell them...well why work for someone else if you already have what you need?

People used to ask me that "dude, if you can handle all of this e-commerce stuff for other people and know how to grow sales from 0 do X, why won't you start selling yourself?" - because creating and sourcing good products is a whole, giant subject which is very hard to get a grasp on. The e-commerce part is not that hard, at least when it comes to marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, ebay etc, you outsource product images, chatGPT does the text content, and you can learn ads on Youtube easily - I did that, it's much simpler than it looks. Or maybe it's just simple for me because I'm already in the niche for a few years, idk.

Sorry for a long post, I just talk a lot. If anyone has some real-life experience on this topic please let me know - or if you have any general advice - thanks in advance if you came this far.