How to check 100% of a small production batch before shipment

By Renaud Anjoran

As more and more companies purchase goods in China and sell them under the “Fulfilment By Amazon” model, we get more request for checking 100% of a production batch. And, to a certain extent, it does make sense.

As I wrote before, FBA sellers get booted out if many customers complain about their products’ poor quality. And, from what I hear, Amazon is going to become stricter as time passes. A random inspection is more cost-effective but is a scary thing to many importers (what if they are not lucky?).

There are three important conditions to reap the full benefits of a 100% inspection:

• Don’t pay in full before the inspection (or you no longer have any leverage),

• Give defective products back to the supplier,

• Be ready to ship the goods immediately if they are acceptable.

We have done a few trials & errors and we now have a clear way of handling it. I wrote it down below. If you have an office in China, you can try to do the same if it makes sense for your situation.

1. Payment of 30% to supplier;

2. Components are ordered, production starts;

3. Random inspection during production (to ensure average quality is not very bad) — this step is often skipped for small orders;

4. Production is 100% finished and supplier sends photos;

5. Payment of 50% (now up to 80% total);

6. Supplier sends the goods to the office;

7. We check 100% and sort out the bad pieces, which are sent back to the factory;

8. Factory sends replacements (or reworked pieces);

9. We check those replacements;

10. Once all is good, payment of 20% is sent to supplier;

11. We ship the goods out and handle logistics.

By the way, I wrote before about QC inspections on a platform and their pros & cons. The approach is rather similar, but typical platform inspections are a good fit for large orders while what I described above (100% production check) is a better fit for small batches.

Maybe some readers have extra tips for making sure a batch is 99%+ acceptable?