Negotiating with Chinese Marketplace Sellers with Nik B

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Thanks everyone for tuning in – spring is in the air, and Easter is coming – though not much celebration here, I honestly forgot it was coming until I was in Hong Kong – Hong Kong is so lucky, they get the holidays for both Western and Chinese calendars – they will have Good Friday off as well as Easter Monday off, while those in mainland China are business as usual!

Ok, we just had the Pod To The People live podcasting event in Hong Kong this past weekend and it was a fun time and got to interview Barrett Bingley from The Economist in Hong Kong – sprucing that episode up and that will be on next week – so for today’s show we have my good friend Nik B from India – a professional negotiator who has helped give me great advice on my business and in China over the years. We work together as organizers for Startup Weekend here and also some commerce meet ups and have become great friends – today he shares about some negotiating tactics with Chinese suppliers

Topics Covered in this Episode

• Intro Nik
• Use a Hong Kong company or a WFOE
• Its all about perspective…thought process in a Chinese market
• Negotiating harder in China or India
• How to bargain
• Pricing and quality
• Sales reps get different price lists for different markets
• Buying direct
• Should I bargain or should I have a Chinese assistant bargain?
• Chinese bargaining to other Chinese as compared to Chinese bargaining to Foreigners
• Example of how to bargain and negotiate on a product, knowing the BOM
• How can people contact you

People / Companies / Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Nik’s company – ChinaImportGuide .co (not currently online)
• Contacting Nik – contact @ chinaimportguide.com
• WFOE = Wholly foreign owned entity, a Chinese company that is 100% non-Chinese owned.
• BOM = bill of materials

Episode Length: 27:31

I think this was extremely priceless information that everyone should take serious consideration from. I know Americans (I have to admit, as an American myself) are a bit spoiled with the best quality in the world – when buying from a factory, if you squeeze them too hard on price, they will find ways to keep their margins the same and lower the quality.

Any feedback would be appreciated. He did mention WFOE – and we will have future shows about cross border business between Hong Kong and Mainland china so keep up listening and enjoy your week!

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