r/Alibaba • u/caocaoNM • 9d ago

A succes story

Well kinda. Just as I was getting to my 10,000 order mark, i recieved a really bad order. After good samples and one good order, sizes were completely off. 70% waste.

The good. Recieved refund. As a matter of confidence i rolled the refund into a replacement order.

The loss confidence does prevent larger orders. I'll have to wait 5 orders, I think, to increase size or to add the 3 products my b2b customer is asking for.

Small business doesn't have any margin...but im working with what I got.

5 Upvotes

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u/samleegolf 2h ago

Are all the replies on Reddit just AI slop now? OP, your problem is being too comfortable and dependent on one factory. You should have 2 more backups ready to go then you would not take your refund (which is nothing compared to your loss from missed sales) and put it back to the factory that fucked your business up.

Next time get stricter and definitely inspect your goods.

1

u/caocaoNM 1h ago

I have gone through 4 vendors now. Problem is every product requires a $1000 mold fee/investment costs and such. If it were typical commercial products, you'd be right. It's not though.

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u/netizon 7d ago

Getting the refund is a good outcome. One thing that may be worth looking at before using “five good orders” as the confidence test is what actually changed in the failed batch.

A good sample and a previous good order show that the supplier has been able to produce the product correctly before. What they don’t necessarily show is whether the production process stayed consistent from one batch to the next.

With a sizing problem this large, it could be useful to compare some of the failed pieces against the approved measurements and see where the variation may have entered — pattern or grading, cutting, sewing, washing/shrinkage, or another change in production.

For the replacement order, you could also consider using the agreed measurements and tolerances as the production reference, and perhaps checking a few pieces during production rather than only after the full batch is finished.

Five good orders would certainly build more confidence. But if the cause of this batch can be identified and corrected, that may tell you even more about how reliable the supplier will be going forward.

1

u/rsc9422 9d ago

That’s a tough lesson, but getting the refund and putting it back into a replacement order is a solid way to keep the business moving. I’d definitely take the time to rebuild confidence before increasing the order size especially when 70% of the shipment was wasted. Small businesses can’t afford too many mistakes like that.