Things to Know When Sourcing Additives

Are you a manufacturer or trader? 

It is an inevitable question for most traders. why? because it is widely believed manufacturer price is lower and support is better. Here we list SWOT and share our thoughts of additives manufacturer vs dealer in China.

SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities, Threats) of additives manufacturer vs dealer

Check the company, verify it’s legitimacy, been sued or not, type of company, etc. compare with what you been told by factories. excluded the not honest one. General thoughts of additives manufacturer and dealer.

1. profile and professionalism. the profile of a company is delivered by its stuff, and professionalism, easy to work with is also things to mind.
2. let the product speak, sample approval is also necessary, compared with a loss of batch order, sample delivery cost is 30-40usd additives dosage is so small amount. Not even to mention, sample charges is always refundable when you placing an order.
3. Not done yet, random check your batch with sample before order. If anything wrong, back to facthe tory as soon as possible. Why? when the production records are fresh and factory had the strongest willing to solve the problem. It’s your best chance.

Give me your best price

Best price or bottom price is vital no matter for importer or distributor or end user factories. While without knowing few facts, buyer may found the bottom price so unreliable.

Wish our peers never found we revealed these facts.

1. ambiguous quotation, price is related to payment terms, quantity, package details, quality standard two-party confirmed, etc. A seller may quote a bottom price while not giving these terms the same time. Here the bottom price is a catchy straight and buyer may walk away when aware of it.
2. details missing, regarding big projects like machines, buyer and selling may miss some details. When it comes to additives, buyer and seller shall confirm the test standard and method is the same as regional or countries’ standard and methods may differ.
3. fake products, it will be discussed later below.

Quality concerns and facts

Yes, there are some bad memories for buyer buying from China. Things are getting better while knowing some tricks could protect us from loss.

The trick is to use mixture or fake products, chemicals can be fake as well. the optical brightener market is total a mess, you could found different concentrations each product,  mixture of two optical brighteners, mixture of optical brightener and pigments, optical brightener with filler, all on the market. It is so wildly used that even we suffer loss, it is because the factory which it’s one for the earliest producers, OEM factory of Mayzo, added pigment into it and spots were found in the plastic sheets.

For organic pigment market, the same thing was happening though not so messy. As there are hundreds of small to middle factories in the market.Some of them pointed at beating price with competitors and

added filler or mixture of two pigments just to lower price. Buyer shall be careful and verify seller if possible.

Service and support

Service and after service support has been criticized by the international buyers for a long time. For the chemical industry,  service is even more important and required professional sales and support team. Reasons listed as follows,

1. additives work in a system with other ingredients, an understanding of not just one but also other related additives is necessary for the best sellers.
2. buyer often need a solution for his/her final application, eg.greenhouse film anti-aging solution is a combination of primary or plus auxiliary antioxidant + UV absorber +light stabilizer. Not all buyer is with the required knowledge or problem-solving experience.
3. practical guide is kind of theoretic, and things shall be different when ingredients, final condition, processing condition, commercialization and time change. the recommended product may be different.
4. problem-solving ability, problems may occur when customers using it.