Blog
5 Product Sourcing Mistakes: Download This Free Guide
Are you a new importer attempting to source your product in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, or another low-cost region? Over the years, we’ve worked with many people who’ve had varying degrees of quality control and sourcing experience. And there are certain key...
Quality Control Plans: What Do You Need to Include?
If you’re managing product quality for a consumer brand, you know that selling good quality products is key to maintaining your company’s reputation. You need to guard that reputation carefully. Several years back, a furniture company had to recall 20,000 children’s...
Can You Inspect Multiple SKUs In a Single Lot to Cut Costs?
If you are working with a third-party inspection company (like Insight), you are undoubtedly paying by the “man-day.” That means that as you place larger orders, your costs will go up since it might take more man-days to complete an inspection. As an importer...
Packaging Quality Control: What Should be on Your Checklist?
If you don’t have good quality packaging for your products, you can be setting yourself up for failure — even if your products are well made. Imagine that you’ve put the time, money, and effort into ensuring that your products meet all quality and compliance...
Will There Really Be a “New Normal” for Supply Chains?
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my...
What Does MOQ Mean? Here’s What You Need to Know
If you’re getting started as an eCommerce seller and looking for manufacturers, you may have come across the term MOQ and been confused by it. What is MOQ? MOQ stands for “Minimum Order Quantity” and it’s the minimum number of pieces of a product that a supplier will...
Will the Coronavirus Crisis Change Trade Shows Forever?
Image Source: Collision ConfAs an importer, you may rely on trade shows and trade fairs to help you identify new product sources, keep up with industry trends, network with peers, or inspire fresh new ideas. If so, the global pandemic has probably hurt your ability to...
Shipping Marks: 5 Things You Need To Put On Your Cartons
When you are importing goods from overseas, it’s important that your cartons can be recognized at a glance, include instructions for proper handling, and provide the information needed to ensure correct delivery. This where shipping marks come in. According to...
Going From Product Design to Store Shelves (A Timeline)
Do you have a new product design that you want to manufacture and get onto store shelves by Christmas? That’s definitely realistic… If you’re talking about Christmas 2021. At Insight, we do a lot of sourcing in Asia and sometimes would-be importers will come to us...
Chinese Trading Companies: Are They Really That Bad?
If you’ve been going through the process of searching for new suppliers, you may have noticed at some point that not all of the companies you find online are factories. While browsing the Alibaba platform, for example, you may eventually find that there are also a lot...
Reshoring is a Move You Need to Think Through Very Carefully
An abandoned warehouse located in Loveland, Colorado. (Photo: Tara Evans) “This pandemic has underscored the vital importance of reshoring our supply chains and bringing them back into the United States, where they belong, where they should have never left.” –...
What You Need to Know About Reasonable Testing Programs
No one wants to import a product into the US and then find out that it has been deemed unsafe by the authorities—or worse—has actually injured someone. Imagine that you purchase an order of adult sweatshirts from a manufacturer in Cambodia and have them shipped to...
Restarting Production Soon? Don’t Expect It To Be Easy
The United States has been social distancing for weeks and much of the economy has been shut down, but now things are slowly starting to open up again. At the beginning of May, about half of the states have partially reopened and are allowing certain businesses like...
Manufacturing in Indonesia: 3 Things You Need to Consider
Have you been looking at potential manufacturers in Indonesia to either replace or supplement your China manufacturing? Is it something that you’ve thought about? Since the U.S.-China trade war began in 2018 many importers have been transitioning production from China...
This is Why PPE Importers Are Frustrated Right Now
Masks, gloves, face shields, and other types of personal protective equipment (PPE) are in high demand right now. Because of this, the prices for some PPE items have gone up by more than 1000%. This is according to a report by the Society for Healthcare Organization...
Quality Control for Furniture: What Importers Need to Know
Are you working with furniture manufacturers in low-cost countries like China, India, or Vietnam? Imagine that you place an order for 2,375 wooden tables and the shipment arrives at your warehouse. This table is a hot item and you’re excited to get more pieces into...
Do Not Forget These 3 Key Fundamentals When Sourcing PPE
With the global pandemic raging, countries in Europe and the Americas are fighting to get every last piece of personal protective equipment (PPE) they can. Tensions are high and the U.S. has reportedly been “paying far above the market price for medical-grade masks,”...
Quality Control is Now More Important Than Ever in China
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a major impact on not only the health of entire nations but also on the health of the world economy. At first, when China shut down its factories to control the outbreak, importers in the U.S. and Europe were concerned about how soon...