What is the Alibaba inspection service?
The Alibaba inspection service helps you ensure you will be receiving the same products you are paying for. The inspection for higher value orders is performed by two other inspection companies, mainly Bureau Veritas and the China Certification & Inspection Group not Alibaba’s team themselves. Alibaba’s team only performs their production monitoring service.
What is the Alibaba production monitoring service?
If you choose the “Production monitoring service” by Alibaba which they recommend for small orders. They will call factories or suppliers to make sure your product gets ready to be shipped on time. They will also verify the total quantity of your order.
How many products will they check?
Production monitoring service ($48):
Alibaba’s team will ensure the total quantity is correct. They will also pick out one product to perform a visual inspection, they would report any defects found in that product. Total quantities can easily be checked via an export packing list. Packaging inspection will be performed for 1 item/carton only. This could mean they only check packaging for one of your cartons and only one of your items.
The two inspection services recommended by Alibaba for higher value products can be slightly confusing to the new importers. It may seem that as though that in the Bureau Veritas Inspection they will check all 50 of your products and in China Certification & Inspection Group’s inspection they will check all 500 of your products. To understand this, we will have to refer to the tables below:
| Your Total ordered Quantity | Based on General Inspection Level II – For workmanship CCIG will check | Based on Inspection level S-3 for workmanship BV will check |
| 2 to 8 | 2 | 2 |
| 9 to 15 | 3 | 2 |
| 16 to 25 | 5 | 3 |
| 26 to 50 | 8 | 3 |
| 51 to 90 | 13 | 5 |
| 91 to 150 | 20 | 5 |
| 151 to 280 | 32 | 8 |
| 281 to 500 | 50 | 8 |
| 501 to 1200 | 80 | 13 |
| 1201 to 3200 | 125 | 13 |
| 3201 to 10,000 | 315 | 20 |
| 10,001 to 35,000 | 500 | 20 |
| 35,001 to 150,000 | Not included | 32 |
Workmanship inspection mainly includes visual defects that the inspector will spot. For example, if you are buying Polo shirts; CCIG or BV will report any broken buttons, missing labels, loose threads etc.
Sample size meaning the total number of products to be checked for workmanship will be based on the table above. Let’s say you have ordered 500 polo shirts, have a look at the table where the ordered quantity is 281-500 and then the next two tables show how many pieces each inspection company will check. So in this case CCIG will check 50 polo shirts for workmanship and BV will check 8 polo shirts.
Bureau Veritas Inspection ($118):
Apart from the workmanship inspection, they will check 1 piece for a function test in order to check if the product works as per its use. For product quality as per your agreement with the supplier they will test 3 products to ensure they match your specifications BV will also ensure total quantities match your ordered quantity. A conformity check will be performed for 3 items.
China Certification & Inspection Group ($188):
CCIG will check 3 pieces for a function test in order to check if the product works as per its use. For product quality as per your agreement with the supplier they will test 10 products to ensure they match your specifications. CCIG will also ensure total quantities match your ordered quantity.
Will your order be without any problems or defects?
The short answer is no. An inspection can only give you an idea about the type of defects your products will have, if an inspection fails, you can definitely hold the supplier accountable and ask him to fix the issues and pay for a re-inspection. If the inspection passes, and you see some defects that you definitely would not like to have in your products, you should talk to your supplier and ask him to rectify the issues.
Should you use the Alibaba Inspection?
Unless you have been working with a supplier for a very long time and without any issues. We recommend all importers or buyers from Alibaba to use some type of product inspection. Whether you use an inspection service via Alibaba or you use and independent 3rd party quality inspection company like us, we recommend all importers and buyers to use a product inspection service before paying for their goods.
If you are ordering a very basic product and are not too concerned about quality, then you can skip the inspection process without adding extra costs to your buying. However, if you would like to have more control over the quality of your product, you should use an inspection service.
How do you perform an Inspection when importing from Alibaba?
You can book an inspection service before making a payment via Alibaba’s trade assurance. However, if you have already placed an order and would like to add an inspection service, you can do so via your order details page.
Conclusion
We hope this article clears up the confusion regarding Alibaba’s inspection service. We often get inquiries where people that tell us that Alibaba’s inspection service is cheaper, however at times they fail to realize that the total number of products being inspected will be a lot lower when compared with our quote. If you want more control over the quality of your products with added value services like custom QC checklists. Do get in touch with us and we’ll try our best to help you. We work with you as a team to detect and solve quality issues.