How to simplify your business in China

Startups and SMEs have limited amounts of resources, both capital and manpower. In the early stages of a company, restricting yourself to your core mission is a necessity and the work of individuals will decide over the triumph or failure of your company. How can you improve your chances of success? Find out what you are really good at and double down.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) can be an extremely effective way to scale your company and focus on the essence of your business. BPO refers to the method of contracting an external party with specific business processes, such as logistics management, accounting or customer service.

At LiBang, we are all about helping Swiss Startups and SMEs to simplify their operations in China. Thanks to our experience in sourcing goods from China and knowledge in supply chain management, we can assist your operations effectively and save you time and money. There are 3 key challenges a lot of Swiss companies face when ordering goods from China.

Dall-E Prompt: a person meditating under a cherry tree, in the style of studio ghibli

Challenges for Swiss companies sourcing goods in China

Logistics

Shipping goods from China to Switzerland can be a nuisance. Some suppliers offer a shipping service in cooperation with a forwarder or a courier service, but the pricing is intransparent and often comes with hidden fees or other unexpected costs. Other suppliers don’t offer any shipping service, and you are on your own trying to find a way to bring your goods to Switzerland. During the shipping process, you rarely have a single point of contact and the supplier acts as a transmitter of your messages, making the whole process slow and inefficient.

Communication

Let’s face it: Thanks to the internet the world got a lot smaller, but it’s the little things that make everything whole. In the end, these little things are the deciding factors if you are happy with your products or not. Communicating your requirements in an effective way is hard and can be excessively time-consuming. 

Sourcing

Did you ever have a product in mind but just couldn’t find it on the common sourcing websites? Alibaba’s search function is widely-known to be subpar compared to others and a frustrating experience. Oftentimes OEM/ODM manufacturers are a possible solution but they come with hefty price tags and unrealistic MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) expectations, especially for Swiss SMEs operating inside Switzerland. 

Dall-E Prompt: a person meditating under a cherry tree, in the style of studio ghibli

How do we help?

We understand ourselves as a bridge between Swiss buyers and Chinese sellers. Thanks to our expertise on both sides, we are able to close the gap and help your company to focus on the essential, i.e. the tasks that you actually earn money with.

Logistics, Communication and Sourcing are important business processes for every Swiss company purchasing products in China, and they are often needlessly complicated. We help you to simplify these processes and, if wished, take them over completely. 

Case Study Twing

For 7 months already, we have been supporting Twing in their operations in China. Twing is a Swiss startup with the goal to free Switzerland from bad promotion articles. Their customers are expecting high-quality give-aways, in most cases customized and branded, for affordable prices and with tight deadlines. Before our help, Twing had difficulties standardizing their product lines and offering them in a consistent quality on time.

We have since taken over their communication with suppliers and the logistics processes completely. 

Dall-E Prompt: a camera lens focusses on a moutain range, in the style of studio ghibli

Whenever Twing receives an inquiry from customers and fixes the details, they hand over all the information to us. We reach out to suppliers to receive quotations, lead times and deadlines. If all the specifics are met and Twing gives us the green light, we place the orders and arrange all the shipping, including custom clearance, from China to Switzerland. To make this whole process as smooth as possible, we are using real-time communication tools like Slack, Wechat and Trello. Next to all the benefits and less headache during the ordering process, we were able to reduce their shipping costs, thanks to consolidation and other shipping practices.

Essentially, Twing is able to focus on what they are really good at: Designing beautiful products and selling them to their Swiss customers.

By outsourcing your communication, logistics and sourcing processes to Libang, we can take your business to the next level. Get rid of all the headache and wasted resources during your procurement process and let us handle these tasks for you.