A Direct Buying And How To Find Manufacturers Not Agents

[b2brctoys]

Hi, I have created a new website called www.b2brctoys.com its purpose is only to introduce retail shops and online sellers directly to manufacturers. Currently I am living in China, I have been very busy over the last 3 months collecting as many manufacture and product details as possible. Currently I have around 2000 products with over 1200 already listed. This website offers a number of advantages for people who want to buy directly and bypass many of the distributors, agents and trading companies. Here are a few of them,

1. No wasted time for shop owners. Our site has most of the manufacturers in China and we are hunting down more everyday, already we have 1000's of products listed,

2. We can provide you with shipping companies that you can trust, which we and other have used before,

3. You get direct access cutting out all the middle people, this saves the buyer and seller money,

4. Warranties, if you buy though one man band agents you have no real warranty, if that person moves or runs all your warranties are void. Dealing directly ensures backup and support,

5. We are NOT an online shop. We are a true B2B (business to business) site, so you can deal directly with manufacturers,

6. We will be adding manufacturers all over the world plus new ones that start up,

7. We are the only B2B RC website of it's kind in the world, anything that is remote control is going to end up here.

These are just some of the advantages. Please check our website out. We are of course still building it and there are many things we wish to do. But I hope you like what we have done so far. Product details will be upload over the next few weeks as well. People who would like to talk to me can send me an email via b2brctoys@hotmail.com or sales@b2brctoys.com

[the_canuck]

Nice idea, but from your post I thought I would see a list of manufacturers, what they produce, and their contact information. I was also hoping to see lists of brands each product was being rebranded and sold under and their MSRP prices. I was not prepared to see a 'webstore' with a shopping cart system from the information in the above posting.

In the least you should post who manufactures each product and the volumes needed to order direct including tier pricing and shipping costs. To make the business model profitable you would have to charge an advertising fee to the manufacturers who list products on your site or a fee when sucessful transaction occurs between the manufacturer and customer as a direct result of your website.

Essentially you are just becoming a middle man yourself since your are not manufacturing anything but selling products purchased from the manufacturer.

IMHO the only legitament reason for middle men is to supply products in low volume to many buyers and by in high volume from the manufacturer. For that service most people are willing to pay slightly higher prices (10 - 25% profit is reasonable, 100% - 500% is not). Fair is not charging what you think the market can bear and justifying it with some value add marketing speak and trying to control direct access to the manufacturers with contracts and secrecy.

I think I am missing something in the marketing speak, but why would I buy through you as a middle man and not the established middle men that most have come to trust even though they don't like the prices?

Andrew (who is a manufacturer and uses direct sales almost exclusively)
www.canuckengineering.com

[b2brctoys]

Yes, it looks like a online shopping cart system BUT its not. There are NO PRICES, you can't buy anything. When you click on a product you like and submit your query an email gets sent to the manufacture and you get the manufacture contact details so you can deal directly. From that point on you are in direct contact with the manufacture not me. There is no way you can buy a product from this website. I display all manufacture products like this in shop form just so people can ee what is available from the manufacturers. Also, sorry for the lack of detail, the product details I will be starting to upload over the next few weeks. All I do is charge a registration fee for joining the site for 1 year. I don't act as a middle man or agent, I just provide a service so you can access the manufacturers directly.

It has taken me a lot of time to collection this information but I can at least say for sure that anyone that users the site will be able to cut a lot of these agents out. And not all agents have access to all products. Over the next year I hope to build up the list of manufacturers.

I also figure this, the average retail shop owner can easy spend 3 to 4 hours of his/her own time looking for products and that is often only for 1 product. When they do find a product online they still don't know if they are dealing with an agent, trading company, they don't know if its a trusted source. Because I have checked most of the companies out I can say at least that most are the real deal. And the manufacturers can't sign up directly like they can on Alibaba, only I can register them.

Take ALIBABA for example, I am from New Zealand but living in South China, we tested a number of traders on ALIBABA, all said they were manufacturers but infact when we told them we are in China and wanted to see their factory they could not show us as so many of them are just agents. Also, there is no sure way to know if you have backup/warranties as its easy for these middle people to just run with the cash, which I have noticed has already happened to a few buyers on RCgroups. In China often agents/trading companies are the worst people to deal with.

Why aren't so many factories listed on alibaba, they can't offord it, most toy manufacturers in China are not big, they usually produce only a few items such as 2 or 3 types of Helicopters. Many of them don't have the funds to pay for gold memberships on Alibaba (around US $7000 which in Chinese RMB is around 65,000rmb). So what happens is the trading companies group together and pay for a gold membership passing themselves of as manufacturers.

So I create this website to bring the manufacturers and you together directly. I am also hoping that it will mean that less buyers like you over seas will have to make trade shop trips to China to buy saving a lot of money. I recently went to the Canton trade show, looked at the remote control toy companies there, basically it was just filled with trading company/agents. If the manufacture and the retail shop can cut these people out then its better for everyone.

So that is the background of the idea. I just want to act as an online service to introduce people but I don't want to trade. I can do that if people need help but the website is only as an introduction service.

[RonR214]

I agree with andrew's comments above regarding the web site. Would probably be best if you scrap what you have and start over as it is slow and cumbersome. Should take you directly to the area that you selected and not have to look at the bottom of the page for the next link.

Ron

[b2brctoys]

Oh, just to add a point about minimum orders, everyone is different and even the products from the same factory can be different. But I will get that info up later. It does take a lot of time to get these details.

As for what you said about using agents if you can't order in bulk, yes to a point its true, but we are finding because more factories are manufacturing similar products the competition is greater and they are starting to sell is smaller minimum order numbers. And I have started talking with some of the factories trying to teach them to do what the agents do themselves. When it comes to marketing most factories over here are very poor at it.

Also, something interesting I found in China, if you sign up as the legal distributor its often a waste of time. Because the manufacturers sell to local retail shops as well. These local retail shops sell directly online often by passing the legal distribution channels. Most of the local retailers will sell in bulk. Though a few factories do try to control this.

[the_canuck]

Yes, it looks like a online shopping cart system BUT its not. There are NO PRICES, you can't buy anything. When you click on a product you like and submit your query an email gets sent to the manufacture and you get the manufacture contact details so you can deal directly. From that point on you are in direct contact with the manufacture not me. There is no way you can buy a product from this website. I display all manufacture products like this in shop form just so people can ee what is available from the manufacturers. Also, sorry for the lack of detail, the product details I will be starting to upload over the next few weeks. All I do is charge a registration fee for joining the site for 1 year. I don't act as a middle man or agent, I just provide a service so you can access the manufacturers directly.


That's very good news. I may have come across a bit critical, but that sounds much more like what I was hoping you were doing. Subscription fee is more than justified if you can provide the real info and weed through all the crud.

It does look like you need some more work on the website. The best advise I have is to keep it simple and easy to navigate. Having the shopping cart stuff at the top threw me for a loop. Probably best to remove it to keep the confusion to a minimum.

My girlfriend is Chinese and I have been using her language skills to sift through the misinformation that the agents/distributers try to convince US hobby stores.

I'm looking forward to see what you end up with. It looks to be a great service if you succeed.

Andrew