How business is (often) done in China.

By David Dayton in “Silk Road International”

All of these experiences happened to me this last month.

First, If you don’t make it, fake it. This is different from the same old “China just copies everything.” Well, sort of different.

We are working for a client that is buying deli products in China for the US market. They want a PET box or baked chicken. We found 8 different suppliers, visited factories, received samples, got bids and finally placed a PO with one of them. One of the factories we visited had just the box we wanted. But when we placed an order we were immediately told (after the deposit was paid) that “the mold” is broken. Of course we wanted to confirm as the production times for a new mold (or repairs) would significantly impact our delivery dates. We went to the factory; they couldn’t show us the mold. They said it was being repaired off site-we asked to go there too (as we had been previously told it was “next door” to the factory). Guess what? The only mold that has anything to do with our chicken box order is now, for the first time, being made from scratch. The box samples, of which they had quite a few, were actually from somewhere else. Can they make it? Yes. But they haven’t before and now the production will take twice as long as the original bid.

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