Alibaba is the largest B2B platform around the world, millions of buyers search for different items on it every day, then what you should pay attention to when sourcing a hotel key card supplier on alibaba? Nexqo has been exporting our products on alibaba for 11 years, today I will tell you 10 secrets for sourcing hotel card supplier on alibaba.
There are 53,126 products for “hotel card” on alibaba, so many suppliers produce the same product, which information you should check on?
1. Supplier Online Performance Index (SOPI)
There are 6 levels under SOPI, level 0 to 5. How was it classified?
Alibaba judges the SOPI from 4 factors;
Presentation Quality
Product Popularity
Transaction Volume
Service Quality
There are detailed explanation for each factor on alibaba. Well, what I’m going to say is, Alibaba is very strict on the SOPI for a better experience for buyers, even if the seller has gained level 5 for 3 factors but only one factor is level 0, then the final level of the seller is 0.
The most difficult factor is “transactino volume”, to achieve level 5, the order amount for the passed 3 months should achive at least US$ 800,000 (depending on the industry average). In order to achieve level 5, some sellers would transfer their offline orders onto alibaba, but some doesn’t want to do this because some of their VIP customers don’t want to.
Therefore, a 0-level supplier doesn’t mean he’s not good.
P.S.: Alibaba has a new policy that if a seller doesn’t invest enough on the platform (buy advertisement or premium member), even if all the 4 factors has achieve level 5, they can never achieve level 3 or above on the search result page.
2. Trade assurance
Trade assurance is a free service provided by Alibaba to protect buyer when trading with the seller from payment to delivery. In short, it’s online ordering through alibaba.
With this service, you can receive the products you ordered on alibaba on time with expected quality. And if not, you can complain the seller to alibaba. If you have enough evidence to show that the seller didn’t follow the negotiation before you placing the order, you will get a satisfied solution or refund.
Besides, there is a “Supplier’s Trade Assurance Limit: US$ xxx”. What does this mean?
Alibaba is cooperating with OneTouch to serve their sellers for exporting. OneTouch is a comprehesive platform served for Chinese middle and small-sized enterprises, it handles all service during the whole international transactions process, including finance, custom clearance, logistics, foreign exchange, etc. OneTouch has now served more than 10 million buyers and 150 thousand sellers all around the world. All goods exported via OneTouch need to be uploaded to the back end of alibaba, the more goods you exported, the higher “trade assurance limit” you will have.
From this amount, you can tell which suppliers exported the most products. However, this amount stands for offline exporting orders only.
For example, the highest trade assurance limit amount under hotel card is Nexqo, US$ 796,000. Which also means, if you want to trade with Nexqo online, any amount under this limit could be easily done. What if your order amount exceeds this amount? Do not worry because the seller can submit a temporary application for increasing the trading amount.
But if you check on Nexqo’s SOPI, you will find it’s only level 1. That’s because most of our orders are go offline, which also proves a low level supplier doesn’t mean he has little exporting experience.
So, remember to check this amount while you are searching for a hotel card supplier on alibaba. A higher amount usually means a richer exporting experience.
3. Verified Supplier
Every supplier was verified by Alibaba, but what does “verified supplier” mean?
It means the supplier was verified by a third party like TUV, SGS. In another word, it means the supplier is a premium member on alibaba.
If you don’t see a supplier has this mark but they can provide their own videos to show their office and factory, they can also be trusted.
When you are checking a verified supplier, remember to check their video on their alibaba’s site.
4. Price
Unit price on alibaba normally is not the real price.
Some suppliers would mark an extremly low price to attract buyers, but normally, there is no way to make that price no matter how many you are going to purchase.
So, don’t be too excited when you saw a low price on alibaba. Ask for a formal quotation before you place an online order.
5. MOQ
Sometimes you will see 1 piece as MOQ on the search result page, that’s normally meant for samples only.
Do double check with the seller about their MOQ especially when you are looking for a rarely-used RFID chip or a special mold for your key card.
6. Ranking
It is reported that 90% buyers only search in the first 3 pages on alibaba, and 80% buyers check the products on page 1 only, therefore, it’s very important for sellers that to get their products to page 1.
The first 5 products in page 1 marked with “Ad” at the right bottom corner are advertisements, sometimes there will be an additional advertisement on the very first position with a crown in front of the product’ subject, and marked with “Top sponsor listing” at the right bottom corner.
Besides, there are a listing of “Premium Related Products” at the bottom of the page, which are also advertisements.
The rest are ranked according to the comprehensive data of both the product itself and the store. Product’s quality, click rate, staying time on the product page, transaction data; store’s response rate, total transaction data, SOPI, etc.
Some sellers are limited by one of a few data of the product or store, so they have to advertise on the first page to buy some traffic.
7. Supplier Report
Alibaba will rank their sellers with their competitors in their database to give a final index, from BB, BBB, A, AA to AAA.
Key factors are:
- Registered business information
- Transaction behavior and operational history on alibaba
- Record response rate, key operating individuals, key markets and products and public records.
Here you can reach the section.
In a word, the longer running year the seller has, and the more transactions the seller operates, the higher rank they will get.
Be more careful if the supplier is in BB grade or you cannot find them in the supplier report at all.
8. Infringement
If the supplier has infringed the policy on alibaba, they will be punished.
First time, warning with infringed product deleted;
Second time, they will be blocked from searching for one whole week;
Third time, they will be blocked from searching for 2 weeks;
Fourth time, they will be blocked from searching for 3 weeks with all products offline;
Fifth time, the account will be shut down.
So, when you sunddenly couldn’t find your supplier on alibaba, maybe they got punished by infringement.
But if a supplier’s picture or description is copied by their competitors, it’s usually difficult to get them punished. So you will discover that many supplier on alibaba are using the similar-type pictures and descriptions.
P.S.: it’s interesting that we found some competitors using the same or similar description of company introduction as Nexqo wrote on alibaba, let alone pictures and product descriptions.
9. Certificates
Usually, sellers will put many certificates on their site to show the buyers that they are reliable, that’s understandable because it really helps. Just remember to ask for a clear version and check whether the supplier name on the certificate matches their company name. Sometimes the seller will revise the name to their own name on the certificate via photoshop, so if the certificate really matters to you, find out a way for further verification.
10. Comments
Comments will show how the buyers like the whole process dealing with the seller, check as many comments as you can so that you can tell how the seller really is. But don’t 100% trust the comments because there might be some little tricks.
Take a minute to check out Nexqo’s Hotel Key Card, or contact us to customize your hotel card now.