r/alibaba
My first Alibaba order didn’t go wrong. That was kind of the problem.
Author shares lessons from a smooth but operationally flawed first sourcing order on Alibaba, focusing on shipping and inventory.
Everyone comes to this sub looking for horror stories. Scammed supplier, customs nightmare, product that looked nothing like the photos. I had none of that.
I ordered phone chargers. Small order, testing the water. They arrived fine, worked fine, sold faster than I expected. Genuinely no drama.
So what’s the lesson? Two things I got wrong despite nothing going catastrophically bad:
Shipping eat the margin. I picked the first freight option the supplier suggested. It worked, but I left money on the table. There are cheaper forwarders if you ask around before you commit, not after.
I ordered too few. They sold out before I had a chance to reorder. By the time the second batch arrived, the momentum was gone. The first batch basically ran an ad campaign for a product I couldn’t deliver on.
If your first order goes smoothly, don’t assume you did everything right. I thought I had. I was just lucky the product worked. The business side had obvious gaps I only noticed in hindsight.
If you’re just starting out and want to follow along, I’m documenting the whole process at importbusinessguide.eu. No affiliate links, no sponsored stuff, just what actually happens.
Thanks a lot!
Nice
As a supplier, I usually ask the customer if he has his own cooperative logistics, and then check the price of Ali's official logistics according to the weight and volume of the customer's goods, and then go to the freight forwarder, and my hands are not only. There is a freight forwarder, there are countless freight forwarders, can go to price comparison, for customers to choose the best quality price
on shipping, suppliers usually default to their own forwarder, but independent agents often quote 10-30% less for small parcels if you reach out directly. for order quantity, most factories will drop their minimum by half for a pilot if you ask, but it's worth planning your reorder window since lead time plus shipping can eat 4-6 weeks.
So sorry for delete the comment.. i want to delete my response.. 🙏
That relief after the first arrival of the Alibaba order and matching what you expected is so real. I remember checking tracking updates nonstop on mine. Your experience with the supplier, and the communication part makes a huge difference especially when you’re ordering for the first time.
Good point on compliance. That’s actually something I didn’t think about at the time, and probably should have. For anyone scaling chargers in the EU, CE marking isn’t optional and the liability if something goes wrong is real.
The MOQ thing is exactly the trap. You go small to “test,” it works, and then you’re stuck waiting for the next batch while the window closes. Lesson learned the hard way.
The shipping margin lesson is the real takeaway here. I quoted my second batch with Transport S&H and saved enough to actually justify ordering more units upfront, or just call a few freight forwarders yourself and compare.
I will contact a few more and see if I can find a local company in Portugal making this type of service..
With your example, the chargers are probably not EU compliant and so if you scaled them and a problem happened you would have problems.
But otherwise you are right, and it why especially when people start on platforms like Amazon and want a tiny MOQ, it is a bad business decision because if the product sells well and you have to re-sell the momentum and algorithm basically has to start from scratch.
Transport S&H, hadn’t heard of them, I’ll look into it. The shift I needed was just realising the supplier’s suggested forwarder isn’t the only option. Obvious in hindsight but when you’re doing your first order you just want it to arrive without drama so you take whatever they offer.
Did you find much difference between forwarders on smaller shipments or is the saving mostly worth it at higher volumes?