First: There are no solid rules for retail sourcing. Depending on the
product, the numbers you need and the countries you include in your
quest can all change the conditions (and the answer to this question).
WHen you are selling shoes in a little village in Thailand, your
requirements will be different from Wal-mart.
Some basic guidelines have been published for the International
Purchasing Conference Proceedings (http://www.bendorf.com/1h.htm)
I'm living in China, so my experiences in this factory of the world
might influence this answer a bit.
1. There will be hundreds of companies who are willing to help you,
against a price of course. I list here a few of them, but the list is
basically endless. Under the right conditions I will help you. That is
strategy one: outsource your sourcing.(BTW: I have not checked the
listed companies)
Some helpful companies:
Global Sources solutions (http://www.sourcing-solutions.com/)
Global Sourcing Solutions & Commerce (http://www.globalssc.com/)
The Global Sourcing Advisors (http://www.tpi-sourcing.com/)
2. A step further goes a company like www.yourimporter.com from Dallas
(and now in Shanghai)
They are an alliance of purchasing companies who organize themselves
and do much more than only buying. They will check producers not only
on quality and pricing, but also whether they stick to international
labor standards, environmental requirements and other issues that
might be relevant for your shareholders and stakeholders. As you might
guess: this seems a good idea for the larger companies. I talked to
them and their story was rather convincing (at least 18 months ago).
I checked their link and that did not work 100%, but you can also get
to them through one of their partners:
http://www.indiamart.com/partners/yourimporter.html
Here in China, the government is pretty happy about their approach.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200103/22/eng20010322_65683.html
3. While it makes commercially sense to organize the buying side, also
the manufacturers have organized themselves, but then it is much
harder to check who you are dealing with. Some of the more famous ones
are:
www.alibaba.com/ and www.globalsources.com/
What they offer is almost endless.
4. When your sourcing operation is getting out of hand in numbers, you
might as well build your own factory. That strategy has been used for
the past twenty years here in China by some of the larger companies
and is - when I believe Paul Bradley of the trading company Li & Fung
(www.lfvc.com/lifung) from Hong Kong being replaced by the concept of
"virtual manufactering". They outsource themselves to local
manufacturers, saving the capital for investing in factories
themselves. They get their fashion brands, toys and other products and
deal with 6,000 manufacturers in China alone.
For each concept there are both horror stories and success stories
available. Whatever place you are going to source from, whatever
method you are going to use, no matter what kind of money you have
available, one thing you should always do: go and have a look
yourself.
Some companies have posted their experiences on the net. They tend to
be success stories so are not that representative.
http://www.carlsonwagonlit.com/US/casestudies/strategic_sourcing/case1.pdf
http://www.levistrauss.com/responsibility/conduct/
http://purchasing.about.com/cs/intlprocurement/
Good luck
Google search terms:
Sourcing strategy
www.yourimporter.com
Global sourcing evaluation |
