One of the worst disasters you can face as an importer is Quality Control Issue; if your products result in causing some sort of harm to your customers; this harm may manifest itself in several forms, such as a physical injury due to a faulty product. An example of this is if you are an eyewear importer and your supplier fails to use proper material in the eyewear as instructed by you- instead, he makes use of cheap plastic in the eyeglasses to cut costs.
When a customer wears these eyeglasses out into the sun, the sun rays falling onto the plastic may cause serious damage to the eye. Not only will this incident result in the business being potentially sued for large amounts of damages, but the negative publicity that your business will face might drive it to the ground. For such reasons and many more, it is imperative that you find any quality issues in your products yourself at the site of production, rather than leaving a possibility of your customers uncovering defects in your products.
Customer’s Expectations
In the ever-increasing competition in today’s world, any business that does not fulfill customer’s expectations will find it extremely difficult to survive. In such a situation, for any business to come across products that do not meet customer’s requirements is a huge cost: not in terms of monetary losses, but the loss of integrity and image of the business also. Therefore, when you encounter products that are not in-line with the specifications that consumers require of you, the cost of scrapping and reworking those products can be huge.
Quality is an aspect of virtually any product that customers are least likely to compromise upon- several times you might have found yourself purchasing the slightly pricier product when having to choose between two products just because you feel it provides you with better user experience because of higher quality. Therefore, it is integral that you ensure consistent and adequate quality in your products to meet with customer expectations.
Quality Control Inspection Services
Quality control inspection Services is an integral part of any business that wishes to ensure customer satisfaction. As a buyer working with a manufacturer overseas, you may encounter a countless number of problems in the production process, including those that you may least expect. It is therefore very important for you to undertake adequate precautions in order to make sure that you do not encounter any defects in your problems or disruptions in the production process.
The instances of businesses losing thousands of dollars worth of products because they do not meet with the requirements are not unheard of. In fact, even today some businesses rely on word of mouth or communication through email to inform the supplier of their demands and specific product features that they require them to build. This form of communication is extremely prone to misunderstandings, on either end of the transaction, which can result in faulty products that do not pass quality inspections and thus need to be discarded.
However, if you’re like many importers who do not have their own full-time Quality Control team working with them. This might compel you to perhaps slack behind a bit when it comes to Quality control, but it is essential that you keep in mind how damaging such a situation might be for you. Think of adequate quality control in your business as insurance against much greater losses in the future if you fail to ensure quality of the products. What you might have to pay as a cost of failed Quality Control services may be exponentially higher than the cost of implementing strict Quality controls.
Defects
Before you actually set out to prevent defective products from being shipped out. It is essential to first define what exactly classifies as defects and what categories can they are sorted out in. Let’s take the example of garments when explaining these defects to you in detail:
- Critical defects
- Major defects
- Minor defects
Critical defects
These represent the extremely damaging defects to the garment that may either fail to meet mandatory regulations or pose a threat to the health and safety of the consumer. Even if a single critical defect is found in the garment, it is likely to result in the rejection of the entire shipment because no importer can risk putting the life of his customers at risk. Some of the main reasons why a critical defect results in the immediate rejection of order include the fact the risk:
- Puts consumers at risk of bodily harm
- Threatens the reputation of distributors throughout the supply chain, and
- Exposes the brand to liability and unnecessary costs in the event of a product recall
Example 1:
Finding a needle or any other similar sharp object in the packaging of the garment during the inspection. Due to the nature of the product, it involves being sewn by hand which results in the carelessness of the labor, resulting in a sharp might object being left behind in the final good when it is packaged.
Example 2:
A splotch of blood on the garment. Suppose the labor cuts himself when cutting the fabric for the garment, and a few drops remain on the garment. This is a critical defect resulting in the immediate rejection of the garment.
Major defects
Major defects do not pose a direct threat to the safety of the end-user but result in the garment not meeting the importer’s specifications as approved in the golden sample.
These defects can reduce the value of the good by impacting the intended usability of the product, resulting in a loss of sales as customers return the products. If the numbers of major defects found in the garments are too high, it might result in the importer requesting the manufacturer to hold the shipment until these defects are resolved.
It is possible that the factory workers may be able to rework the garments in order to fix the defect, in which case the importer will allow the shipment to be sent over following another inspection to make sure that all the major defects found are resolved. It is also possible for some importers to allow the supplier to send in products with major defects in them, and then to sell off these products at a discounted price- this is usually for cases where product rework cannot resolve the issue.
Example:
the pants manufactured by the supplier do not meet the size chart given by the importer. The supplier will have to alter the products to make sure that the dimensions match those provided by the importer.
Minor Defects For Garments
Minor defects are those that typically are found in very small quantities, do not directly impact the salability of the products and are unlikely to be spotted by the customer. However, these issues are still not in-line with the requirements ordered by the importer.
Examples for minor defects found in garments include:
- Misprinting of “smal” instead of “Small” on a shipping carton
- Untrimmed threads, missing stitches or uneven stitching on a garment
- Minor variation in shading between garment pieces
- Variation of care label quality or content
- Dirt found on the garment
Each of these issues may result in danger for your business if your customers come across these defects before you do. Here are some of the potential threats that you expose yourself to:
Product Liability Suits
If your product has a critical or a major defect that causes harm to the customer, you are liable in the court of law to pay for those mistakes. It is very common for such suits to end up in agreements where businesses have to pay hefty amounts of money as fines to keep their business going. This situation is made even worse with the existence of strict liability laws prevalent in some places, where consumers don’t have to prove the brand or manufacturer was negligent or careless in causing the defect. They only have to prove the defective product caused them harm.
Customer Dissatisfaction
It is not only enough to make sure that your product causes no harm to the customer. It is also very important to ensure that the product fulfills the customer’s expectations. Quality control is an integral part of any business that wishes to ensure customer satisfaction. As a buyer working with a manufacturer overseas, you may encounter a countless number of problems in the production process, including those that you may least expect. It is therefore very important for you to undertake adequate precautions in order to make sure that you do not encounter any defects in your problems or disruptions in the production process.
Some signs that your product might not be living up to customer expectations could include:
- High product returns
- Customer complaints about a product
- Negative online product reviews
- Low customer retention
Retailers May Refuse To Stock Your Products
Continuing the garment manufacturer’s example above, let’s look at how compromised quality might lead to a disruption in your relationship with your retailers.
A large majority of garment importers relay on distributing their products through widespread retail channels such as Target or Walmart. In such a case, having a factory that is noncompliant with social guidelines can result in major disruptions for your business.
The retailer may express concern about noncompliance, and if the issue remains unaddressed then it may eventually terminate their relationship with you- this is most commonly seen when the violations are of an extreme nature, such as child labor or forced labor. If such a situation arises, you would have to face the trouble of seeking out a new distribution channel to market your garments.
How Can Importers Ensure Quality Defects Don’t Reach Their Customers?
Choosing the perfect factory as your supplier is an extremely complex task: there is almost an endless number of factors that you have to take into account, such as cost and ease of business in that particular location.
Let’s suppose you’ve narrowed your search list down to a few potential candidates, and are now in the final stage of choosing the best factory for your products. After days of extensive research, you finally select the site of production for your business. Everything seems in order, just how you had hoped for it to be. Great, time to place the order then? Not quite.
Even if you might think that each and everything about the factory appears to be in order for you to receive your factory, it is highly advisable to wait until you take one final step: a factory audit.
What Is A Factory Audit?
To put simply, a factory audit shows the current position of the factory at a given point in time- kind of like a snapshot.
Think of it this way, you have selected the factory based off of material that was provided to you by the factory itself. All of the credentials, work history, even previous milestones achieved- all of this information was taken one way or the other by the factory staff and management itself. Could it be possible that some of it may not be true? Sadly, it is commonplace for factories to sometimes overstate their achievements as they try to win you over as a potential customer.
Perhaps they’re not very strict about labor laws in their workplace, but because they think it is something that will influence your choice of a supplier, they have made it appear that their factory is extremely particular about following labor laws of the country.
This is simply one example:
There could be numerous ways how the factory can trick you into forming a perception about them that is not entirely true. Even if they have no intention to trick you, perhaps some of the information that you inquired about was unavailable to them, so they answered you with a default response of a ‘yes’.
So what do you do to verify that all the information about the supplier is accurate? You send in a team of professional and experienced auditors to make sure that you receive the facts just as they are. The auditor acts as your eyes and ears in the factory site to inform you regarding any disparities between the actual ground situation and what has been pledged by the factory.
The Auditor Will Mainly Aid You In Answering Two Very Critical Questions:
1. Does the factory have the required capacity to meet your product demands?
2. Does the factory have the ability to produce your products in a timely manner?
Chances are that if you ask these questions to the factory management, the answer will most obviously always be yes. However, your auditor will reveal to you whether that ‘yes’ is realistically true or not.
There exist two main types of audits that aid you in the final stages of deciding whether you want to work with a particular factory or not. These are as follows:
1. The capability audit: This is done in order to verify that the given factory has all the required equipment. And other resources which they need to have in order to produce your products.
2. The capacity audit: This is done in order to verify that the given factory has adequate free capacity. To complete your order within the given timeline.
Quality Audit
This audit ensures that your factory will maintain a minimum quality standard that you provide them with. The auditor will observe the factory’s quality standards and effectiveness of the Quality Management System. He will also compare the factory’s quality standards against the ISO 900 standard. So that you can clearly know whether or not this factory will be able to uphold your required quality demands in your supply chain.
Security Audits
In order to ensure compliance with C-TPAT (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) which is a US government initiative aimed at improving the security of private companies supply chains with respect to terrorism.
If your clients require you to conduct a security requirement prior to working with you. Then you must ask your auditors to conduct a security audit.
Social Compliance Audits
As the world becomes more socially responsible, it is no longer sufficient to be concerned about the quality only. Numerous companies have faced severe criticism from their customers. After being exposed for having factories that do not follow social compliances. Is your factory making use of child labor? Are they giving adequate breaks to their workforce? These are some of the questions that you should most definitely consider. Before choosing a factory, and the social compliance audit will answer them for you.
Setting Clear Quality Expectations
It comes as no surprise that if you fail to clearly convey your demands and expectations. To your suppliers regarding what exactly you need in a product. The chances of them producing a product that is free of defects is quite rare. The best way to make sure that you, your supplier, and your inspection team is on the same page. Is to draft a thorough QC checklist.
Most effective Quality Control checklists contain the following information:
- Product requirements;
- Packaging requirements;
- On-site product tests & checks;
- Defect classification; and
- Feedback from key people involved in production and Quality Control
How can a Quality Control checklist help you avoid quality problems?
Your Products Will Be Made Right In The First Go
Not all defects from a product are easy to rework. Such as the wrong size or materials used in the manufacturing of pencil holders. This will require the supplier to begin production from scratch. And can you really blame him for messing up. If he wasn’t provided with a checklist outlining all the specifications?
This is even more important for cases where the products are supposed to be manufactured through mass production. A single misunderstanding between you and your supplier can result in the entire shipment going to waste.
Your Supplier And Inspection Staff Will Be Accountable To You In Case Of Errors
In the case where you have provided your supplier and inspection staff with a QC checklist. If you find errors or defects in your products then you have the authorities to hold both the parties accountable. Who are responsible for ensuring the quality of the products.
Suppose you find defects in your products. Such as bottles made of plain glass rather than frosted glass as you instructed. With the presence of a Quality Control checklist clearing stating that the bottles should be frosted. There is no room left for the supplier to deny accountability. And try to protest that you were unclear in your demands. This would even benefit you. If this issue is not resolved and needs to be taken up in the court of law.
The same goes for your inspection staff. If you find defects and discover that the team did not carry the specific tests. That you asked for, you’ll want to hold the team accountable. A clearly defined QC checklist will act as evidence that the team failed to meet your orders.
A Wholesome Understanding Of Your Product
There might be cases where you have a general idea regarding the kind of product that you want. But are unsure about the minute details involved. Such as the size of the logo you want to print on the face of the product. Developing a thorough QC checklist will give you the opportunity of fully understanding your product. Thus building a product that is exactly how you want it to be.
Conduct Pre-Shipment Inspections
There are many importers who make the mistake of waiting. Until they actually receive the product to conduct inspections and test the quality of the products. This is a bad idea for a number of reasons. Let’s look at why it is highly beneficial for you to conduct pre-shipment inspection:
What exactly does the pre-inspection process include?
Most of your quality-control challenges can be fixed by performing a pre-shipment inspection prior to having them shipped. For as low as a few hundred dollars, you can seek the expertise of a professional third-party inspection company. To act on your behalf and inspect your goods to provide an expert opinion. On whether or not these products are in compliance with your own product specifications and quality standards. A thorough pre-shipment inspection will cover all major areas of your products. Including the quantity manufactured, the appearance of the product, the materials used in manufacturing the product, the dimensions, as well as packaging, labeling and general functionality and safety of the products.
You Detect Issues At The Source
If you identify defective products at the factory before they are shipped to you. You are likely to save yourself the cost of transporting. These defective products back to the factory in order to be repaired.
When you catch the issue at the site, you have more time to fix these issues. As compared to the situation when you have to send this product back to the supplier after receiving them. This would also most likely result in late deliveries of these products to the customers.
Maintaining Your Businesses’ Good Reputation
As mentioned above, because the customers cannot see your product physically before purchasing it. They have to completely rely on the description that you have provided on your Amazon page. Even if you might think that this description adequately represents the actual product. Unless you carry out a pre-shipment inspection, you cannot be entirely sure that the product your manufacturer forms. And the product supplier is sending to you matches your exact description.
Thus, even if you have no intention of misguiding your consumers. Without a pre-shipment inspection you can come across circumstances where your customers are unsatisfied. Because the product does not match its description. Not only will this cause you a loss of sales. But it will also cost you your reputation as consumers give you negative feedback. Which might potentially result in Amazon actually suspending your account. Because they might think that you have intentionally misguided your customers.
Be Sure Of The Quality That You Are Receiving
One of the most fundamental advantages of pre-shipment inspection, not only for Amazon sellers but for all kinds of sellers. Is that you will receive better quality products from your supplier. If the supplier know that your inspection team will examine the products before they are shipped.
He will be liable to fix any defective products in case they are found. The supplier will take additional measures to make sure that he produces high-quality products. That match the specifications that you have provided. This fear of accountability brought on by pre-shipment inspection automatically result in increasing the quality of your goods. As your supplier will be more attentive in order to avoid having to rework or repair any defects found by your inspection team.
Conclusion
As this elaborate guide explains, allowing your customers to be the ones to find QC issues in your products. They can come with great costs attached to it. Therefore, it is essential that you take precautionary measures such as pre-shipment inspection. And drafting a clear QC checklist to minimize these defects and avoid any disastrous situation for your business.