With the advent of the internet the buying of Promotional Merchandise direct from China has become a much easier process than before. Goods that range from promotional clothing such as printed T-shirts or embroidered polo shirts are now seemingly within easy reach. Electrical items that could include clocks or calculators, cheap printed pens and thousands of other promotional products now sit waiting for you to just click a button and buy. And it’s not just China, India is a great source of leather conference folders or promotional wallets. Vietnam make amazing promotional jackets and if you want to go really crazy you can even buy promotional bottled water from Indonesia now.

Is buying Promotional Items in the Far East as simple as that? Is putting a search phrase into Google the next time you need something all you have to do to get a whole new range of suppliers? The fact is it is not, this is a not a simple process and many people have learned that lesson the hard way by losing lots of money, trading in the Far East requires specialist knowledge and experience. The following true story should be a salutatory lesson.

This true story is about a very cocky young procurement professional who joined a long established promotional merchandise company that had been trading in the Far East for many years and doing so successfully. They prided themselves in taking their time to get communications right and apart from the odd natural disasters such as flood and famine they usually got what they ordered on time. The new procurement man refused to take any advice form people with much more experience, in fact he told them that they could learn from him how to make some considerable reductions in cost.

His first order was for 350,000 watches for a promotion run by an oil company. The senior promotional items buyer at the company offered him advice on who to buy from but he informed him that he had a better factory. The watches were duly delivered and looked great, everyone in the company felt that maybe they were wrong and the guy was really good.

The consignment duly arrived, a few watches were tested to make sure they worked and the shipment was sent to the client. Everything seemed to be just fine until a few days after the promotion started calls about the watches not working started to come in. People claimed that just a day after they activated the watches by inserting the battery they just stopped ticking. Our arrogant buyer looked extremely worried and contacted the manufacturer. Another buyer who was working in the office at the time he made the call said that his face drained of all colour when he realised what had happened. His poor communication had resulted in him ordering a 24 hour digital watch with a 24 hour battery. You can rest assured that this particular promotional merchandise company got rid of him fast.

That example was just one of thousand of things that can go wrong if you choose to deal direct with Chinese manufacturers. One of the big challenges with buying Promotional Gifts is that they are often purchased to a particular promotion. If the printed T-shirts or embroidered polo shirts that you ordered are emblazoned with the date and details of the event then when they arrive late they may as well be used as dishcloths. Image having the branded promotional bottled water and leather conference folders arrive days after the convention is over? It does not bear thinking about.

Careful communications is essential if you do decide to go ahead and buy in the Far East. In fact why not ask a promotional merchandise supplier to take the stress out of your hands. The costs may be a bit higher but it’s better than losing your job like the guy in the story above.