After you finish the product research, you can make a decision about what product to sell. And then the very important step is to find a reliable supplier in China to make your products, because China has the best environment for making good-quality products, but at a very low cost.

With the development of the Internet, it’s not necessary for you to come over to China to find suppliers. There are still a lot of ways to find them through the internet. Many of you may have only heard about Alibaba, which has so many suppliers that you barely know whom to work with, and the process is quite complicated.

Sometimes the MOQ is also too much for a lot of beginners, so it’s not suitable for everybody. So in today’s post, I will introduce 4 methods available for finding Chinese suppliers online, not just Alibaba. All these methods can be applied to small businesses even though they only have a $100 budget, as well as middle to big size business, like over $100,000.

Method 1: Find suppliers from Aliexpress and DHgate

A brief introduction of Aliexpress and DHgate

Aliexpress or DHgate will be the best option for those who are doing small businesses or only want to purchase a very small quantity to find Chinese suppliers and get those products imported from China. Because these two sites are designed for small quantity buyers, and they are very easy to use, just as simple as you’re shopping online.

You don’t need to communicate too much with suppliers and what you need to do is just looking at their selling history and the reviews, and then you can finish the whole purchasing process by clicking your mouse.

The international shipping cost will be automatically calculated when you choose the quantity or shipping solutions. You don’t need to know any knowledge about import & export, because all the packages are either sent by the China post airmail or sent by courier companies like FedEx or DHL. If you are not satisfied with the product quality you received, you can easily get a refund.

Aliexpress and DHgate, which one works better for you?

Firstly, Aliexpress is more suitable for small orders that are less than $100, even it’s fine to buy just one product for your personal use. In most cases, if you buy the same product, there’s no big price difference between buying just 1 unit or 100 units. And if you are doing the dropshipping business, then it’s no doubt that you need to choose Aliexpress.

While DHgate is more suitable for orders between $100 to $1,000. It’s very easy to find that many suppliers on DHgate would set price breakdowns for different quantities, such as 10, 50, 100, or 200.

When you think the MOQ of Alibaba suppliers is too high and the wholesale price on Aliexpress is too expensive, then DHgate will be quite a nice place for you to check it out. This website is very suitable for small business owners, especially when you are running a retail store on the street.

Let me give you a product example. The resistant bands set, it’s a very hot-selling product for the past few years, no matter for Amazon selling or dropshipping business. If you just buy one set from Aliexpress, it costs around $8 and 30 days to deliver to America.

On DHgate, for the same product, it only needs $4.5 to $5 including the shipping cost. And if you can buy over 100 sets, the supplier can ship you by DHL, which only takes 7 days to get to America.

But I have to say, these two websites are not suitable for a fast-growing business, because most sellers of these two sites are wholesalers instead of manufacturers. They usually get products from different kinds of manufacturers or trading companies. So, it’s not easy to ensure that the products you are buying in different batches have the same quality.

And if you are planning to do a long-term business for a certain product and want to buy a few thousand dollars for the same product in the coming months. In this case, these two websites for small quantity wholesale are not a very good option.

Method 2: Find suppliers from Alibaba or other B2B trading platforms.

If you have prepared a few thousand USD budgets to develop a long-term and fast-growing business. It’s no doubt that you need to use Alibaba or similar B2B trading platforms to find reliable manufacturers or trading companies as your suppliers.

Alibaba is kinda like an online trade show, and you can only choose suppliers just by looking at their product images and product descriptions.

Before you place orders, you need to use email or Alibaba trade messages to communicate with suppliers about the price for different purchasing quantities, or how to customize products with your own design or packages.

The supplier will help you create the invoice and contract, and after they get your payment, they will start to make brand new products and then arrange shipping to your country. This is a very common process of how a traditional trading business works.