Do I Need a Sourcing Agent at all?

I DO need a sourcing agent when:

  • I want to make sure I am dealing with manufacturers.
  • I am not confident enough about using Alibaba for sourcing.
  • My business is highly driven by marketing and sales so I want to spend least time on sourcing.
  • I have my suppliers but there are some processes that I want to improve with my suppliers but I just cannot do it single-handedly.
  • I already have a sourcing agent or even a buying office in China, but I want a different one or I just need one more to back me up.

I DON’T need a sourcing agent when:

  • I don’t care if I am really dealing with manufacturers.
  • I have plenty of time to do sourcing by myself and I even enjoy doing it big time.
  • I am pretty happy with all my suppliers whom I deem reliable enough and I can withstand all the risks.
  • I have my own sourcing agent or buying offices properly set up in China and I want to stay with them and they suffice my sourcing needs perfectly.

Why Work with a Total Solution Sourcing Company?

Instead of topically defining the topic as a sourcing agent, we would prefer to position ourselves as a Total Solution Sourcing Company.

More and more companies are recognizing the benefits of finding a total solution to their sourcing needs. There are numerous suppliers, manufacturers and trading companies on Alibaba in existence today, yet so many of them are both difficult to identify and they are only experts at one specific part of the manufacturing process. However, today’s supply chain needs are constantly changing and increasingly demanding, we find there in one central corner of the most importers’ heart, they are looking to orchestrate a comprehensive and solid control over the entire supply chain.

When you need to do product sourcing, there is the option to work with multiple vendors or link with one company that does it all. A total sourcing solutions company can handle product sourcing, supplier identification, vendor coordination, terms and rates negotiation, quality control, logistics and solutions research.

Other Benefits include:

BetterPositioning

Often times, aside from the aim of cutting down on the BOM cost and firming up the terms and numbers, international importers find it really helpful to turn a supplier into a business partner by sharing with them their brand strategy, work style, market vision and values, which however is really difficult in practice due to difference in languages, customs and norms, knowledge gap and thinking patterns(critical thinking vs passive thinking, for example). An ambassador sourcing company gracefully straddling the east and west would help you bridge the rift valley with your future partner and etch your positioning in his heart.

Improved Communication

Lots of moving parts in your supply chain means you are likely to be in touch with a number of vendors. Miscommunication is common when you have a multi-step process between different companies. Choosing a company that does it all helps to streamline the process and eliminates the chances of something getting lost along the way. In addition, it ensures consistency in your supply chain, which means continuity in your business’s image. You don’t have room for error!

Streamlined Timeline

When you let one company handle the entirety of your project, you’ll be able to agree upon a timeline upfront. You won’t feel stressed about meeting a deadline.

Better Budget Control

A total sourcing company will present you with various options to meet your budget. You won’t need to worry about unexpected costs from various vendors.

Increased Resources

If you are working with only material suppliers they are going to get product made using ONLY the manufacturing facilities they have possessed. When you work with a company who can organize different material suppliers to work together as a team, there is maximized value created with someone spearheading the entire processes.

Long-Lasting Relationship

When beginning a new project, you’ll free up that time you used to spend contacting dozens of suppliers, doing research and qualifying every single one of them. Working with a trusted partner that does it all from A-to-Z, means you only need to contact one company. Our approach means we work hard to keep our customers satisfied, so they don’t have to go anywhere else.

What makes BizShenzhen different?

First and foremost, it comes from within – Unique Core Values that BizShenzhen lives on.

  • Transparency: A clean and healthy business relationship.
  • Integrity: We just found it’s so hard to lie.
  • Share: We grant you full access to our suppliers, connections, channels and solutions.
  • Teamwork: Let’s work with each other, not for.
  • Covenant: Never over-promise, always over-deliver!
  • Embrace Change: Life is a box of chocolates, we never know what we are going to get.

One more thing – It comes from scientific methods and solutions designed by BizShenzhen.


Featured BizShenzhen Sourcing Solution

Our featured sourcing solution is a scientific business model and compensation formula that could line our interests with your interests, and that’s called Retainer overlapped with Unit Set Bonus. The solution allows customers to engage us almost exactly as their China sourcing office by paying us a customized amount of monthly retainer while rewarding us with overlapped bonuses based on a unit set bonus unlike the typical commission percentage model.

Why NOT Percentage-based model?

The fundamental problem with % based sourcing agent model:

1. When the % is set, the higher the purchase price, the higher the commission. It means technically the outcome and margin is better for the sourcing agent if a highest price point is obtained from the suppliers of a product. In the meantime, the lower the purchase obtained, the less margin a sourcing agent earns.

This is really at conflict with pure common sense!
The better the performance of a sourcing agent, the less bonus he earns;
The worse the performance, the more money he makes!

2. When the % is flexible, say higher with a lower value order and lower for a higher value order, this really gives the sourcing agent a huge bummer telling them their potential of value added is strictly limited: for example, if the value added to the supply chain is boundlessly big, the bonus however could border on zero.

This is also a model that makes no common sense at all! As a result, there is a huge caveat:

The sourcing agent would rather find it a lot easier to simply add any enough hidden satisfactory margin to the purchase price before the rates are presented to their customers who are free to share any % of margin as commission, the sourcing agents are safe in satisfying the customers with even 1% or near 0% in this case if the customers are really “greedy” enough.

The model is technically not a sourcing agent model but the model of a trading company.

The sourcing agent would have to either hide the suppliers if the customers cannot deal direct with the suppliers or convince the suppliers to add a bit of margin for him if the customers would request to deal direct with the suppliers. The supposedly business partners now become natural enemies, they always have to vie with each other in getting handsome profit share.

The ultimate result is sourcing agents would have to in some way line their interests with the suppliers not with the customers because they need the suppliers to pay them in the dark or at least ask the suppliers never to clarify what really is going on in terms of numbers. The sourcing agent are now best buddies with the suppliers in the trench, they have to protect each other in, on one hand, retaining highest price possible (when the price could be better), on the other hand, compromising on the quality of the products (even when the products could be substandard).

Why Retainer?

Because it empowers us to manage your supply chain by acting as almost as the same as your representative office in China. We help to manage your supply chain in every possible way:

  • Granting full access to our existing suppliers, connections, channels and solutions. You gain equal access to the valuable people and companies that we are well connected with. You gain access to the relationship and synergy we already built with our suppliers. It gives you power as you seem to have already set boots and have ties in China.
  • Coordinating as one of your team members between your suppliers and yourself;
  • Finding and verifying new candidate suppliers, sourcing multiple different products;
  • Building and Consolidating your relationship with your suppliers;
  • Facilitating QC operations and supervising production;
  • Organizing or facilitating shipping and delivery of your products.

Why Unit Set Bonus?

Because this perfectly sets our interests in line with your interest.

For us, we don’t need to worry about losing profit if the price goes down;
For you, you don’t need to worry about paying more if the price goes up!

Why Overlapped?

Because the amount of monthly retainer are our basic target value to add into your supply chain in the first place.

The bonuses do not come on top of our retainer but overlap with it. When the total bonus (composed of unit bonus times the total units) exceeds the retainer, our compensation is total bonus itself, not total bonus+retainer.

Last but not least, we make available diverse modes of cooperation for you to customize your total sourcing solutions.