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Why Your Chances Of Not Getting Your First China Order Are So High.

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

Just about every week, my firm gets contacted by a US company that ordered product from China and never got anything or got something multiple levels of magnitude less than what they ordered. Much of the time, this is a first order from China. The US company is usually asking us what they can do to recover and most of the time (because the amount at stake is too little to hire an American law firm), I tell them to keep trying to recover and to retain a Chinese law firm to assist. I also tell them not to order from China again without knowing exactly from whom they are ordering and without having someone on their side monitoring product quality. I also suggest they have a contract on their next go round that will increase the likelihood of their getting good quality and decrease the degree of difficulty in their recovering if they do not. David Dayton over at the Silk Road International Blog, who knows as much about the nitty gritty of Chinese factories as anyone, just did a post setting out possible reasons why US companies so often get bad product on their first go round with Chinese companies. This post is an absolute must read for any first timers thinking about buying product from China. It also will likely confirm a few things for veteran China buyers as well. Entitled, "Ancient Chinese Secret: Don?t Lie (to foreigners), it?s just not worth it," I urge you to check it out.

Full post as published by China Law Blog on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).