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Month: December 2021

Sofeast’s Top 10 Blog Posts Of 2021

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Sofeast's Top 10 Blog Posts Of 2021

2021 has been an eventful year, to say the least! Here at Sofeast, we have continued to publish regular blog posts in order to provide advice for everyone who has outsourced manufacturing, supply chains in Asia, new products in development, and more.

With the pandemic still raging, access to many Asian countries has been difficult for importers, so we’ve tried to keep lines of communication open in the blog, as well as professionally acting as your ‘boots on the ground’ here for many clients requiring inspections, audits, sourcing, product testing, R&D, etc.

In case you’ve missed some of our top posts this year, here are the top 10 in ascending order of engagement…

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How To Get Good Manufacturing Performance From Your Factory? [Podcast]

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How To Get Good Manufacturing Performance? [Podcast]

Our host and CEO Renaud Anjoran is joined again in this episode by Andrew Amirnovin, our head of New Product Development at Sofeast, to discuss the 3 elements a factory (yours or your supplier’s) needs to get right in order for you to get good manufacturing performance.

In general, we define good manufacturing performance as being good product quality at the costs we expect, delivered on time, and safe to be sold on our markets. 

As you may imagine, getting this result is no simple task! So Renaud and Andrew paint a very detailed picture about what needs to happen in the factory to obtain these results and provide some tips from their decades of experience that will help you assess your factory or outsourced manufacturer in order to decide if you need to make changes.

 

Listen here!

Listen: The 3 Elements Your Factory Needs To Get Right For Good Manufacturing Performance

Watch: Watch it on YouTube

 

Episode sections

  • 00:00 – Greetings & introducing Andrew
  • 01:50 – Explaining today’s topic – the elements needed for good manufacturing performance.
  • 03:45 – A quick overview of the 3 elements: An effective management system, manufacturing processes under control, and well-designed products properly transferred to manufacturing.
  • 05:49 – 1. The management system.
  • 19:36 – 2. Running manufacturing processes following best practices.
  • 29:00 – 3. Well-designed products that are properly transferred to manufacturing.
  • 44:07 – Conclusion: What you need in place to have good manufacturing.
  • 45:19 – Wrapping up

 

Related content…

Renaud explains the 3 elements further in this video, too:

 

Listen, rate, & subscribe to the ‘China Manufacturing Decoded’ podcast on your favorite provider

There are more episodes to come, so remember to rate us and subscribe! You can find us on:

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to give us a 5* rating and share it with your network if you enjoy listening!

List of Plastic Injection Molding Companies in India (12 options)

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Many of today’s consumer products include plastic housings or parts. Anything from kettles, to earbuds, to laptops, to automobiles. All have one thing in common, injection molded plastic components. Importers are, rightly, diversifying supply chains to include sources other than simply relying on China, so in this post we share a list of some plastic injection molding companies in India who might be useful suppliers for you.

Continue reading “List of Plastic Injection Molding Companies in India (12 options)”

6 E-Commerce Trends Affecting Online Sellers In Late 2021 [Podcast]

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6 E-Commerce Trends Affecting Online Sellers In Late 2021East-Coast supply chain, e-commerce sales, and logistics expert, Marshall Taplits founder of 3PL Ship It Done, is back on the podcast again to discuss six important e-commerce trends affecting online retailers with a focus on Amazon and the USA. You may remember him from a very popular recent episode on why the American supply chain has been crumbling in 2021,

He shares his deep experience of selling on Amazon and supporting those that do with his warehouse and logistics operation to provide warnings about the costs and how Amazon may not always provide the most level of playing fields. He also shares some interesting advice on how to build up your own online presence and e-commerce store so you can take back control from the big platforms!

 

Listen here!

Listen: Marshall Taplits | 6 E-commerce Trends (With A Focus On Amazon)

Watch: Watch it on YouTube

 

Episode sections

  • 00:00 – Greetings & introducing Marshall Taplits & Ship It Done
  • 02:10 – TREND 1: The share of products being sold by e-commerce is increasing. 
  • 06:17 – Does e-commerce’s market share seem unlikely to go down now? 
  • 09:03 – TREND 2: E-commerce sellers going ‘omnichannel’ to reduce reliance on just one platform, such as Amazon. 
  • 15:44 – Is FBM or FBA cheaper/preferable for Amazon vendors? 
  • 19:34 – How Amazon are making a killing from FBA. 
  • 21:24 – Are Amazon starting to become another UPS or FedEx? 
  • 24:31 – TREND 3: Companies are paying more attention to being eco-friendly. 
  • 29:08 – TREND 4: Augmented reality being used to improve how shoppers can visualize products on e-commerce. 
  • 31:43 – TREND 5: Amazon competing against its own resellers. 
  • 34:39 – TREND 6: Compliance checks hotting up.
  • 38:37 – Wrapping up

 

Related content…

 

Listen, rate, & subscribe to the ‘China Manufacturing Decoded’ podcast on your favorite provider

There are more episodes to come, so remember to rate us and subscribe! You can find us on:

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to give us a 5* rating and share it with your network if you enjoy listening!

Plastic, Silicone, Steel, and Others: Updated China Raw Materials Costs (December ’21)

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sofeast china raw materials price indicesThis year (2021) we’ve been tracking the costs of China raw materials in order for importers to have a clearer idea of the market in China and allow you to plan ahead if prices for your essential materials seem to be on the up (for instance, you may decide to buy up some inventory in advance to insulate yourself from further rises).

We’re tracking the raw material costs for some key materials and here’s the up-to-date data for you as of early December ’21:

china raw materials cost evolution Dec 21

china raw materials costs Dec 21

Here are some notes on the raw materials costs right now in December 2021:

  • The spike in silicone prices in October has passed and the cost has settled more these days.
  • Epoxy Resin (E-51): the price has fallen due to lower market demand, while in fact it was expected to keep increasing.
  • Zinc alloy（Zamak5): price increased a little and dipped again, mostly because of changes on the supply side:
    – Europe’s largest zinc mine suspended production due to irrigation problems
    – Glencore’s zinc sulfide production line in Italy will be in maintenance soon
    – London zinc inventories continue to fall
  • Paper for carton (AA 120G): the price for virgin paper has increased a little, but at the same time, the cost of recycled paper price decreased and market demand seems weak.
  • Battery (lithium cobalt oxides): price increased and remains a lot higher than the start of 2021. This is connected to the increased cost of batteries’ constituent raw material NCM (Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide) which rose as its global production fell.
  • ABS (AG-15E1): price decreased as chemical commodities’ prices decreased in line with falling crude oil prices.
  • The cost of stainless steel, brass, and aluminum have stabilized, but remain higher than at the start of the year.

 

How to combat the rising costs?

Explore cost-reducing tips in this post: Rising Raw Material Prices: What Strategy To Follow? (6 Approaches).

What to do if your Chinese supplier suddenly tells you that material costs have risen: How To Cooperate With Your Chinese Supplier, Part 16: Bad News from China, Raw Material Prices Just Increased!

If your supplier just isn’t working out, maybe sourcing a new supplier will help you find one who can offer you better prices and more? If so, there’s no need to fear switching from your current supplier to a new one if you’re prepared: How To Switch To A Newer, Better Chinese Manufacturer? [eBook].

 

We hope this is helpful. Our mission at Sofeast is to help importers have transparency in their supply chain and to give them more control. And this information is critical to have some visibility into your manufacturer’s costing.

By the way, you can always contact us if you have any questions about whether a manufacturer’s quote is reasonable.

DIY Sourcing From China Part 3: Project Management & Checking Quality Early [Podcast]

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DIY Sourcing From China Part 3 Project Management & Checking Quality Early [Podcast]

This mini-series of podcast episodes was spawned following episode 65 where we discussed the different supplier options open to buyers who’re sourcing from China. One of which is to do it yourself!

If you’re interested in doing your own souring from China, these episodes go into detail about the must-do activities and risks you face. Our CEO Renaud Anjoran also provides you with plenty of great tips to make your life easier based on his decades of experience, too!

In earlier episodes (Part 1: Good Fit, Sourcing, Vetting, & Backups and Part 2: Negotiations, Terms, Leverage, & Quality Standards) we covered the earlier sourcing and vetting stages, as well as pre-production.

Now we’re ready to start production, but before you give the factory the green light let’s explore how to manage the project (your order with them) efficiently and why doing early checks of quality and more are so important just before and early on in production.

 

Listen here!

Listen: Sourcing from China (Part 3): Project management & checking quality early in production.

Watch: Watch it on YouTube

 

Episode sections

  • 00:00 – Introduction. 
  • 02:51 – When we’re working with a Chinese supplier, will they provide a dedicated member of staff to manage your order/project? 
  • 10:07 – What can very large companies like Apple expect from their suppliers in China? 
  • 12:40 – Why it’s YOUR job to drive the project and get your contact to follow up. 
  • 14:05 – What penalties can be enforced to keep suppliers in line? 
  • 22:10 – What are the production tracking best practices that professional buyers follow?
  • 30:44 – Are WeChat/Skype/Email effective for managing projects? 
  • 32:04 – What issues can be found and fixed if you perform quality inspections early on in production? 
  • 34:54 – When can we send an inspector during production and what difference does the timing make? 
  • 40:04 – What happens if a problem/s is found? 
  • 43:48 – How is the 1:10:100 ratio related to taking action on problems early? 
  • 49:20 – Wrapping up. 

 

Related content…

Don’t forget to listen to Part 1: Good Fit, Sourcing, Vetting, & Backups and Part 2: Negotiations, Terms, Leverage, & Quality Standards of this series.

 

Listen, rate, & subscribe to the ‘China Manufacturing Decoded’ podcast on your favorite provider

There are more episodes to come, so remember to rate us and subscribe! You can find us on:

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to give us a 5* rating and share it with your network if you enjoy listening!