Your order is ready to ship and you’re ready to sell your products.
The last step of the sourcing process is Quality Control. It’s common practice to conduct a final inspection before shipping. Some buyers see that as an extraneous cost, take a chance, and ship without it. What do you do in this situation?
This article will explain why Quality Control is not just an inspection at the end of the process, the shortcomings of traditional inspection, and what you can do to check your products before shipment effectively.
What Quality Control really is
Let’s get straight to the point: an Inspection at the end of production is NOT Quality Control. Quality Control, by definition, is: “a system for verifying and maintaining a desired level of quality in an existing product or service by careful planning, use of proper equipment, continued inspection, and corrective action as required. ” Quality Control happens from the beginning of the sourcing process If product requirements have been clearly communicated and the supplier’s internal quality control has done their job, the final inspection serves to validate the result of those prior actions.
The reality is that buyers often take shortcuts in the sourcing process and suppliers often overlook their own internal quality control protocol, leading to products which fall short of a buyer’s expectations.
Why you can’t rely on Inspection
Most inspections are carried out according to AQL (Acceptable Quality Limits). This method involves checking random samples from an order. The sample size is determined by the size of the order and defined limits for the number of defects to determine if the inspection passes or fails. AQL works by considering only the number of defective units within the sample, not the number or nature of the defects. For example, if a t-shirt has a hole and also has the logo is printed in the wrong place, it’s just considered as one defective shirt. The inspector determines the more sever defect to record, but will not record both defects. An inspected sample can have more defects in it than detailed in the inspection report because only one defect type per defective unit is being recorded.
Secondly, inspections, usually conducted at the supplier’s location, happen in an uncontrolled environment. The integrity of random sampling, the number of defective units recorded and the type of defects found are all subject to the report submitted by the inspector. Often the supplier can influence the inspector to alter the results in their favor.
The above two issues are less detrimental for importers who first bring the stock into their own warehouse and conduct their own inspection, which is not often the case with E-commerce. Every unit that ships to an end customer must match exactly the photos shown online. If the customer receives a unit that doesn’t match their expectations, they will complain and return it – harming your ratings and generating a loss.
Finally, it will generally cost at least $250 to $300USD for an inspection. While this cost is reasonable on large orders for full shipping containers, most E-commerce orders are not that large. The fixed inspection cost is relatively high with smaller size orders. This is why many buyers forego the inspection.
So what can you do?
Shipping without checking the goods at all carries high risk.
At Checkpoint, our years of manufacturing expertise, innovative working methods, and video technology, combine to create a more effective solution than those that already exist.
We do this by selecting a random sample of products remotely using live video with the supplier and a unique method to ensure integrity of the randomness of samples. The supplier sends the random samples to our office in China and we inspect the products based on your product requirements. The inspection happens in our location, eliminating integrity issues, and is video recorded, as most of our services are, ensuring transparency of inspection integrity.
By avoiding sending inspectors to suppliers and the related costs, our customers get simple, effective product checking at less than half the traditional inspection cost.
Find out more about Checkpoint’s Finished Products Check service here.
