Alibaba is the most widely used sourcing platform for searching for suppliers in China. We’re providing you here a step-by-step guide using our own searching practices which will help you select the most appropriate suppliers and communicate with them more efficiently.
We’re going to take you step by step through the process of searching for suppliers using a lower back support belt as an example.
Step 1 – Determine your search terms
Think of the most logical and simple search terms for your product. For example:
- Lower back support belt
- Lumbar support belt
- Waist support belt
- Lower back support brace
And so on…
Step 2 – Search your keywords by “Supplier”, not “Product”
Try different keywords but make sure you search by “Suppliers”, and not by “Products”. The main reason for this will be in the next steps to filter the list and communicate with them. It’s much more efficient doing this having sorted by suppliers as later you will see it allows you to contact multiple suppliers at once rather than having to do it one by one.
In this example the search term “lower back support belt” achieves 1,120 hits.
While “lumbar support belt” achieves 2,108 hits.
Go with “lumbar support belt” as it alone provides enough choices to filter from.
Step 3 – Filter your list with “Trade Assurance” and “Verified”
This brings the list down to 576 Suppliers.
Step 4 – Manually selecting the suppliers to contact
Now you need to go through the list and manually select the suppliers that you want to contact. Some criteria that we always recommend, at least for popular products which have a lot of supplier options:
- More than 3 years of experience with Alibaba
- Main products consistent with the product you want to purchase
The below example shows one option which we would consider as initially suitable, and one we would not.
For those that you consider suitable and want to come back to click the star for “favorites” at the top right of their listing.
Go through the whole list of suppliers and add the ones you deem suitable to favorites.
A lot of people wonder about whether the companies listed on Alibaba are trading companies or factories. Assume that most of the companies on Alibaba are trading companies. In our opinion, it doesn’t really matter so long as they can supply the right product and the right price and quality level. You can read this blog to understand why we feel that way.
Step 4 – Contacting the suppliers
Now you’ve added all the suppliers you want to reach out to into favorites. Go to the top right of the page and hover over “Favorites” and then click “Favorite suppliers” on the drop down.
This is where the efficiency comes in to search by suppliers instead of products. If you had searched by products, this next step would not be possible as you must reach out to the suppliers one by one.
Click the checkbox next to “Contact Supplier” to select all the suppliers
Then click “Contact Supplier”
Type a short message using very plain simple English (remember, these are not native speakers, and some may put whatever you type into a translator tool).
One of the first things they will ask for is a picture of the product you want, so best if you can attach an example picture from the start.
Once you’ve sent the message you will likely get many instant auto replies with varying degrees of poor English. Don’t pay attention to those. We recommend waiting 12~24 hours (depending on your time zone) and then logging back in to check for the real responses.
Now you communicate with each of the suppliers one by one about your specific requirements. This process may take more time and patience than you’d expect. To make the decision more efficiently, find 3 shortlist options that you want to get a quote and check samples from. Or you can have Checkpoint do this for you with our Request for Quote service.
