Imports Oriental Blog

Jill Coyle

Read a great article on Chinese Negotiation Blog recently about the power struggle between supplier and customer. They use the term “BOPS” (Balance Of Power Shift) which I love! It succinctly defines what I’ve usually just called the cold shoulder.

I’ve always found it rather confusing when suddenly a supplier just didn’t want to do a sample for us (a supplier we’ve used for 6 years), or when a supplier just took his sweet old time when we were telling him, “This could be a moneymaker if you finished it THIS YEAR!”

Read the full BOPS article here

Everything is about relationship here in China. One thing that helps is to just continue to build those customer-supplier relationships – go see your supplier when possible, try to do negotiations face-to-face, go out to lunch, etc. It’s much harder for a supplier to write you off when you’re right there in front of him.

Building long term relationships with our suppliers in a high priority for Imports Oriental. To read more about how we’ve improved product through working with our suppliers in person, check out these  two articles