Post: #1

Any entrprenuers out there who can chime in? I've been having trouble with an overseas company with whom I ordered my product from at the end of September. The sample came quickly without problems. Now that I placed my scaled order they seem to be stalling. I used PP to send 1/4 of the final price to begin production. They respond to my emails but I just feel like something is off. They are a new company to me and they have a high quality product at a low price so I would hate to cut em. I've never gotten burned before and so I'm not too familiar with the red flags. In the meantime I've has to take a loss and source out a domestic company to stay affloat while they process my order.

What do you guys think? how can I politely kick them I the pants? Should I just ask for a refund and look for a different company? What do you consider a reasonable lead time?

Thanks in advance

Post: #2

Which country are we talking about?

Post: #3

(10-27-2015 09:09 PM)swoosh Wrote:  Any entrprenuers out there who can chime in? I've been having trouble with an overseas company with whom I ordered my product from at the end of September. The sample came quickly without problems. Now that I placed my scaled order they seem to be stalling. I used PP to send 1/4 of the final price to begin production. They respond to my emails but I just feel like something is off. They are a new company to me and they have a high quality product at a low price so I would hate to cut em. I've never gotten burned before and so I'm not too familiar with the red flags. In the meantime I've has to take a loss and source out a domestic company to stay affloat while they process my order.

What do you guys think? how can I politely kick them I the pants? Should I just ask for a refund and look for a different company? What do you consider a reasonable lead time?

Thanks in advance

This is meant in the most constructive of spirits:

1. 'Entrepreneur' is a title misappropriated by every person who watches Dragon's Den and the Apprentice, and then thinks they are one too because they have some shitty idea that loses them money hand over fist, but it's all cool so long as they can tell people they meet they are entrepreneurs. If you are one, other people will apply the title to you, and it will be because you have achieved prolonged and varied success, and demonstrated peculiar talent.

2. Your question is incredibly vague, and suggests that a large part of the problem may be naivety on your part. The obvious questions that spring from your post, just off the top of my head, are:

What kind of product is it? Is it highly technical? What was the agreed lead time for delivery? Were there any caveats? How far past the agreed lead time are you?

A reasonable lead time depends entirely on what the product is. If you've ordered t-shirts, reasonable may be measured in days. If you've ordered fusion reactors, decades may be the measure of reasonable. Your vague post suggests that you may have approached the whole thing in a vague, and possibly naive way. You do not come across as business-like, and that may be harming your presentation to your 'foreign company'. If that is the case, they may simply feel that they can treat you as disposable.

If you are able to provide a specific breakdown of the situation, with actionable information, then you will be far more likely to get constructive responses.

Edit. Less constructive than I could have been. Have to interview a prospectivee employee. I will add an example post shortly to try to help.

Post: #4

To try to give you an idea of what I mean, if you were to structure the question in a way that allowed people to help you, you would include pertinent facts about the product and the order, as well as any deadlines.

For example:

I have a problem, I have ordered 100 printed circuit boards from a factory in China. The contract is for the boards to be printed, and the components sourced and factory soldered by the same company. I was quoted a two week lead time for printing the boards, and a further week for fabrication. The order was placed in response to a demand for 90 units of the completed product, to be delivered within 28 working days.

The order was placed 4 weeks ago yesterday. I received assurances from the company in question that the 3 week period would run from the next full business day. The boards are now 1 week over due. The company tells me they will be shipped within the next 24 hours.

The cost to me of the unit is X, and I sell the boards for 2X. I can get boards manufactured in my home country for 1.5X. The customer is unable to be flexible on their deadline. I usually sell 100 units/month, and expect to sell 100 again next month. Whoever prints and fabricates my boards is likely to see 10,000 units worth of orders from me within the next 24 months.

The person I deal with at the factory is Head of Sales.

In the above example, there is plenty of actionable information. For example, a lot of these types of factory have a lot of expensive machinery, that they don't like to sit idle. Being able to plan for large orders is critical to their ongoing success. You are therefore in a strong position to negotiate. It makes sense to take a more robust approach.

If however you are running what I believe is termed a 'side-hustle', and you're just trying to make pocket money, then threatening to take your business elsewhere will see you lose the deposit and not receive the boards.

Equally, who your point of contact is, their position within the firm, the jurisdiction of the firm itself, and the extent to which the order is late are all material factors in giving any meaningful advice. It may simply be that you've been naive and not allowed yourself enough time to deliver on a contract (we've all been there), and just have to suck it up and learn the lesson.

I don't say any of this to be condescending, and I apologise if this post has come off that way, but I assume you are a young guy who may have a viable idea, and sometimes a bit of constructive tough love is appropriate. Trying to run your own business is particularly unforgiving, and you only really get to make a few mistakes before you start to see precious capital start flying out of the window. It is better to get your mindset, and your approach, correct now.

Post: #5

Depends on the country. My family has been in import / export for many years. I remember one time where almost half a container of lighters was defective After being shipped from China. This was of course after trying a new manufacturer with very reasonable pricing.

It was an absolute nightmare for them to get resolution. In the end they cut their losses and went to a different manufacturer.

Post: #6

(10-30-2015 11:26 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  1. 'Entrepreneur' is a title misappropriated by every person who watches Dragon's Den and the Apprentice, and then thinks they are one too because they have some shitty idea that loses them money hand over fist, but it's all cool so long as they can tell people they meet they are entrepreneurs. If you are one, other people will apply the title to you, and it will be because you have achieved prolonged and varied success, and demonstrated peculiar talent.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Everyone I've known who called themselves an entrepreneur was not a real entrepreneaur. Most of them didn't even have a business. Most of them had a single idea and they thought that was enough to warrant the title.

So I think the rule of thumb is that you should be extremely skeptical of anyone calling themselves an entrepreneur.

Post: #7

Naivety? Absolutely. New in the import export game? Yes. But we all start somewhere. I appreciate all of your comments so long as they are constructive and useful to myself and the other members. Were on this site to learn from each other so don't hold back.

Now, let's begin.

I've been side hustling since I was 10 but recently I've found a business that is working so I've decided to invest more of my time and money into to it. I have been selling high quality button down shirts for the last 2 years and sourcing my shirts from a company in the USA. Everything is great however I am only making a 4 dollar profit per shirt. As demand is going up I wanted to increase my profit so I chose a company out of India to manufacture them for me thus increasing my profit to 9 dollars a shirt. The order I placed is roughly 7 times their min requirement. The agreed lead time was 4 weeks to door. It's 2 week past the lead time. I spoke with the owner of the company many times within these past few days he has been keeping me updated as the progress but has not specified why there is a delay.

Like I said I am new to this game and so I am not sure how to proceed. My gut says recover the funds and look for another supplier. (Is india this disorganized??) My other gut feeling is to ride it out but the longer I wait the more I have to continue to buy from the US manufacturer as well as having my capital tied up in this mess in India.

If I have left out anything let me know what I
can add. I have to say though i am purposely Leaving out some details for privacy reasons.

Thanks.

Post: #8

I work in IT. We outsource a lot to India. Here's how it has always went down:
1- Discuss project, deadline and payment
2- Project begins
3- Project manager says "It's going well" every day
4- When the first milestone's deadline is near, project manager starts making up excuses like "we are understaffed" "someone is on sick leave, we thought we could make it" "budget too low" "hard to encounter bugs and small errata came up" or what have you
5- Past several weeks down the first milestone's deadline you ask to see progress
6- Project manager sends you sample work, along with a lot of "we tried our best believe me"s
7- What you receive has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with what was planned. Software is buggy, minimal UX/UI work done, crashes often or plain old doesn't work.

Replace software industry terms with apparel and God help you.

Post: #9

(10-30-2015 11:31 PM)swoosh Wrote:  I chose a company out of India to manufacture them

How did you choose them? On the internet I'd guess? So you chose to do business with far-away (3d World) people whom you have never met, am I right?

Or have you traveled to India to meet them, check their status, and create personal links? If not: How do you know they actually exist and are indeed currently in business? You might be talking over the phone with a con man alone in his house...

Post: #10

(11-05-2015 02:38 PM)Going strong Wrote:  

(10-30-2015 11:31 PM)swoosh Wrote:  I chose a company out of India to manufacture them

How did you choose them? On the internet I'd guess? So you chose to do business with far-away (3d World) people whom you have never met, am I right?

Or have you traveled to India to meet them, check their status, and create personal links? If not: How do you know they actually exist and are indeed currently in business? You might be talking over the phone with a con man alone in his house...

Plus this. In China you can hire independent inspectors to go check if the company you found on alibaba actually exists. I'm pretty sure something like this exists for India as well. I went with the assumption that you did this in my other post.

Post: #11

Did you get your shirts?

Post: #12

Old thread but I'll chime in for future reference.

If someone is delaying and stalling they only think you can do is annoy the fuck out of them till they don't want to ever hear your voice again.

Call them up. They'll use caller ID to avoid your calls. Get a spoofcard and spoof your phone number to trick their caller ID. Call them 5 times a day. Google all the executives. Call each of them 5x a day. Call them Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Do NOT lose your temper when you get a new person (e.g. the ceo) on the phone for the first time. However, it's OK to lose your temper (within reason) when you chat with someone who you've been dealing with over a period of time if they're an asshole who has fucked up consistently over the project.

Emails are OK. But easy to delete and spam filter out. Phone calls are best. Spoofcard is nice because it gives you the option to record the call in case it does have to go to lawyers.

Pain in the ass but it's the only way that works.

Post: #13

I thought I'd give an update to my solution for the benefit of others. I chose the company online through a trusted source, I did my homework and decided that the evidence was in favor of them being legit albeit in a third world country.
They provided a product that is superior to all others in terms of quality and marketability.

The problem was/is that they operate in third world conditions. Anyone who's tried to catch a bus in any developing country knows that things are more "relaxed".

So after a few back and forths and dialing in my product, I wired money for a sample. The sample came and it was awesome. So I placed a small first order with them. - that's when they went ghost. I started to get worried and wrote this post. I got a few good hisses from the crowed but ultimately I realized I am the only one who could pull this project out of the ashes and make it work.

So- thank god I am a crafty SOB.
When I sent the money overseas I hired an escrow service who puts the money in the companies account and although it shows a balance, it's not theirs yet.

I simply pulled all my money out overnight.
- they freaked
For the next week they called me and wrote 100 emails asking what happened.

I let them sweat a little and then I called the CEO, at his home, around dinner time.

After that stunt, communication improved 100%. What I think happened was that either my order was small and they pushed it to the back of the line or it was really big and took them a while to make it. The product ended up coming two weeks late but it increased my profits by 600%. My relationship with the company still remains positive and I continue to do business with them.

Maybe it's me but like I said in another post I will obsess about something until it's perfect.

I would probably have scheduled a vacation to india and knocked on their door out of principle.

I like doing business in third world countries because it reminds me of the Wild West. Prices are cheap/ profits are high and there is danger & risk around every corner.

I hope this post helps others out there with the entrprenuerial spirit.

Post: #14

Great post swoosh. Are you a one-man operation? Where do you connect with other entrepreneurs? It can be a lonely life.

Post: #15

Honestly, I wish I did know more. I find it hard to relate to many people on that level as most arent really into it. I know only one entreprenuer that I talk with and they live on the other side of the world. I know them only because we were pals in high school. We still talk once in a while.
I feel like it would be cool to connect with other entrprenuers and would certainly be vastly beneficial.

Post: #16

Business owners lounge started:

/thread-54749.html

Post: #17

My experience with outsourcing Applications/Software:
+ China is very user friendly.
+ Good communication (despite language barrier) and will refund money if necessary.
+ Prices are Cheap compared to USA.

- India is a total Cluster Fuck.
- Terrible communication
- They mostly DO NOT refund money and instead will give you "credit" towards more work.
++ Prices are DIRT Cheap compared to USA (lower than China).

Those are the basic Pro's and Con's I have noticed.
If you went with India, then good luck getting money back (most likely - Not gonna happen).

Post: #18

(03-27-2016 01:39 PM)swoosh Wrote:  I thought I'd give an update to my solution for the benefit of others. I chose the company online through a trusted source, I did my homework and decided that the evidence was in favor of them being legit albeit in a third world country.
They provided a product that is superior to all others in terms of quality and marketability.

The problem was/is that they operate in third world conditions. Anyone who's tried to catch a bus in any developing country knows that things are more "relaxed".

So after a few back and forths and dialing in my product, I wired money for a sample. The sample came and it was awesome. So I placed a small first order with them. - that's when they went ghost. I started to get worried and wrote this post. I got a few good hisses from the crowed but ultimately I realized I am the only one who could pull this project out of the ashes and make it work.

So- thank god I am a crafty SOB.
When I sent the money overseas I hired an escrow service who puts the money in the companies account and although it shows a balance, it's not theirs yet.

I simply pulled all my money out overnight.
- they freaked
For the next week they called me and wrote 100 emails asking what happened.

I let them sweat a little and then I called the CEO, at his home, around dinner time.

After that stunt, communication improved 100%. What I think happened was that either my order was small and they pushed it to the back of the line or it was really big and took them a while to make it. The product ended up coming two weeks late but it increased my profits by 600%. My relationship with the company still remains positive and I continue to do business with them.

Maybe it's me but like I said in another post I will obsess about something until it's perfect.

I would probably have scheduled a vacation to india and knocked on their door out of principle.

I like doing business in third world countries because it reminds me of the Wild West. Prices are cheap/ profits are high and there is danger & risk around every corner.

I hope this post helps others out there with the entrprenuerial spirit.

It would have helped if you had mentioned escrow when you started this thread. But great that everything is sorted out and you are making good money.