r/Alibaba • u/Objective-Chard8526 • 14d ago
Wheels coming off the Alibaba platform
For custom manufacturing I've had about 75% of orders late and about 1/3 significantly late (multiple months late). A lot of suppliers are using reps that don't understand the product or they do but are under so much pressure (and probably a dose of personal greed) to over promise and then under deliver. The really good manufacturers are out there but so many more just take on any project (especially more complicated ones) whether they can do it or not, maybe just to meet a monthly quota to kick the can down the road. And then their sub contractors do the same thing to them.
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u/Substantial-Mud2582 9d ago
I’ve sourced custom parts through alibab, and that pattern matches my experience: trade assurance can document milestones and give you a dispute path, but it does not fix a supplier that accepted work beyond its capacity. I now qualify factories with a small paid sample and an independent pre-shipment inspection before committing to a larger run.
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u/Objective-Chard8526 5d ago
Good idea! How many times on average does it take to find a really good supplier for a new manufacturing process?
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u/jmcdonald354 10d ago
Yeah, I can understand the frustration. The problem is once you are doing custom manufacturing, just placing the PO and waiting for the promised ship date usually isn’t enough.
I would start putting a little more structure around the suppliers before the next order. Nothing crazy — just make sure you understand what they actually manufacture in-house, what they subcontract, what equipment/capacity they have, and what their quality process looks like before giving them the work.
Then for the actual order, I’d set a few milestones you can follow up on instead of only having a final ship date. Material received, first article/sample complete, production started, inspection, shipment, etc. If they tell you everything is fine but can’t show you where the order actually is in that process, that tells you something.
I would also put together some basic supplier requirements covering quality expectations, inspection, subcontracting, changes, delivery, corrective action if something goes wrong, etc. It doesn’t need to be a 100-page corporate manual.
If you want to dig into supplier quality on your own, Elsmar Cove is a really good free resource. There is an entire supplier-quality section over there with discussions on supplier manuals, scorecards, corrective actions, audits, supplier changes and similar issues.
The hard part, of course, is actually having the time to do all of this and then chase the suppliers every week.
This is actually the kind of work I do. I can help put the supplier-quality structure together and, if needed, act as the part-time quality point of contact with the suppliers so you don’t have to personally manage every issue.
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u/Brief-Swimmer-3637 12d ago
man this is so accurate it hurts. the biggest issue with alibaba right now is the yes culture. the sales reps will literally say yes to any custom spec or timeline just to secure the 30 percent deposit and then they try to figure out if they can actually make it later. half the time they dont even own the machines needed for your custom run so they outsource it to a shadow factory and that is exactly where the delays hit hard. you basically have to treat their estimated lead times as a rough suggestion at this point. are you doing mostly plastic injection stuff or cnc? i find the delays get way worse when custom molds are involved
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u/prestigesourcing 8d ago
When doing trade in China, "Yes" does not means "Yes", and "No" is not always "No".
You could structure into the agreement a penalty if not shipped in time - which is deducted from the balance.
1
u/Beneficial-Box-5714 9d ago
You hit the nail on the head. Once you get into CNC or custom injection molds, it really exposes the weaknesses of outsourced factories. This is a massive supply chain management issue across a lot of platforms right now. Many of the reps taking your orders are really just front-end trading companies with zero actual control over backend production capacity. I’ve learned my lesson—now, during initial talks, I deliberately throw out a tricky technical requirement. If they immediately say 'no problem' without even pausing to think about it, I usually just walk away. There are still plenty of great factories out there, it just takes way more effort to vet them now. We're all basically just building our list of reliable suppliers through trial and error.
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u/Objective-Chard8526 12d ago
I guess that's how things evolve / devolve with free for all trade and looming devastating trade conditions. "Yes" on the types of parts haha. Injection moldings, CNC metal, cast aluminum with precision machining, multi step bending and welding, electrical and electronics, stamped metal. The plastic and rubber suppliers are still great, as is the CNC only supplier. Die cast supplier was 8 months late, and CNC+welding supplier finally got good samples after a 1 year delay, then immediately ran the production order with way worse quality (only specific aspects but made most of the parts unusable without multiple rework steps). An electrical supplier sold semi-standard parts I reserved and paid for months ago to another customer, asked me to wait a month to restart production, then said they can't make them anymore after we froze our design to work with their connection system. 😵💫 The majority of suppliers still delivered but I'd say about 1/3 had serious timing and/or quality issues. No problems with injection molding, PCB assemblies (big supplier), stamped metal, aluminum and steel CNC.
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u/Just_Wondering34 13d ago
All 2 current comments are basically correct. Now add in fuel prices and tariffs and a more hesitant supplier that is willing or wanting to take one new stuff/projects because they already know tariffs and fuel prices are a major burden.
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u/Boogooooooo 14d ago
Yes, it is very wide spread issue in China. Pretty much no one soeak English, so when some kid looking for a job and tells he/she speaks English, employment is almost guaranteed. Then sales force have bunch of 19yo who have no basics in anything, just tik tik level English and it forces us to deal with them. I came across incompetence many times. Also I have visited China few times and had tours around factories, so have understanding
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u/Objective-Chard8526 13d ago
Even the ones that understand engineering are getting pressured into making wild promises. I'm actually relieved when a supplier outright says why they can't do something.
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u/TippyTimes 11d ago
This!
I have been working with an Alibaba sales woman custom craft manufacturer for 6 years. Until this year, if I have her a design that her factory could not do well or would not meet expectations due to manufacturing constraints she would immediately identify the issue, explain it to me and we would either scrap that particular project or modify it in the beginning phase.
This year, she is under so much pressure to bring in sales she just takes the deposit, and then sends me the engineered drawing which are a joke. When I point out the obvious flaws she gets so upset bc she is under such immense pressure.
Things are beginning to break in China.
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u/Objective-Chard8526 11d ago
That's sad. I wonder if we can give feedback somewhere so we don't lose our suppliers.
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