How to Buy From Yiwu Market

  How to buy from this “huge” Yiwu market is still not clear for many of its visitors.

  Here is one example: G from Singapore, who represents a large company and plans to source some products from Yiwu. Before she came, she thought that Yiwu market is something like a fair or trade exhibition. She can easily import directly by speaking to the sellers there.

  She was greatly disappointed to found out that 95% of the people in the market are not ready to export directly. They don't have export licenses, don't know anything about FOB price, and most of them even don’t speak English!

How Yiwu market works?

   Usually two people are working inside the shops. One is “boss”, the other is “assistant”. In most cases, the “boss” is the factory owner’s wife, daughter, or close relatives, someone the factory owner can completely trust. The “assistant” is usually a girl they employed, who can speak some English and know how to use a computer.

   “Boss” usually don’t speak any English and knows little about foreign trade. Their job is to keep everything under control. To keep the overall cost down, the “shop assistant” is usually high school graduates or college graduates. They don’t have much knowledge about foreign trade either.

     So the shops here just put whatever available inside, and sell. That’s it. They are happy with this. To export directly to overseas buyers is not something they’re happy to do, or able to do. So here comes the question:

Suggestions: Come to Yiwu for a visit if possible

Firstly, buyers know their market far better than their agents. They can select the right products at a right price. If they stay with an agent, there can be lots of mis-communications and time waste.

Buyers can also discover new opportunities. Agents just don’t have the buyer’s eyes. And I don’t think agents can show all the opportunities of this huge market, just by emails, phones talks and live chat.

Secondly, buyers can know the fact at some extent. They can excess to information like price and new arrivals. They can explain exactly what they want and show the agents/factories how to do in the future. They can also make quicker decisions.

Thirdly, information online or you get from somewhere else usually turn to be junks. You spend lots of time and energy, but without any positive results in the end.