Ha yes, great question! Why China!
It was more a “why not China” type of scenario. We initially found a supplier on Alibaba 6 or 8 months ago and maybe it was luck, but it was cheap, good quality, we could pay AFTER receiving the goods and halved our costs instantly. And yes, we’re only selling to Australian customers.
So I had no problem paying $2k to fly over there for a week or two and see what other possibilities were in China.
But if I can’t set up a WFOE with less than (a very justifiable) 500,000 RMB in the first 12 months, then the party for me in China is basically over. I’m finding it really interesting that if China demand a minimum of $250,000 USD or whatever, it basically precludes any business with a turnover of under 1 or 2 million a year to do any kind of production in China. Seriously?
So yup, Singapore is where some of our competitors go, but I could just as easily look in the Philippines or Vietnam.
I’ve spent the last 6 to 8 months working with China that to start all that research again in another country would probably drive me crazy. But also, I’ve got my fingers in a lot of pies and there’s all sorts of other production we can do, products we can launch, etc. Vietnam might be great for this one product we’re working on at the moment, but I think China might have more overall potential for future ventures.
I really want to see if I can make China work before looking elsewhere.
