Have you ever considered finding a key card supplier for your hotel? Are you worried about getting deceived when trading with overseas supplier?
Here are some tips you should keep in mind when finding a hotel key card manufacturer for your business.
Professional
A professional supplier can definately save you lots of troubles. Then how can you tell a supplier is professional or not?
- Communication
We put the communication in the priority because a good communication is the basic of establishing a stable and long-term relationship. If you don’t feel right or uncomfortable when communicating with a supplier, then maybe you should change for another one.
Also, whether the supplier always reply your messages or emails promptly can help you to make your final decision.
- Proper suggestion
A good supplier is definately not just like a merchandiser, that simply put your order into production directly. They should be able to discover the potential problems which might be difficult to realize in the production before the order is confirmed. Also, you can ask for their suggestions regarding your artwork, maybe they will surprise you.
- Shipping
You might need a card supplier who’s experienced in exporting business if you are new in importing cards for your hotels. Remember to ask for the packaging photos of their previous orders to make sure the cartons are strong enough to survive in the overseas shipping.
If you are a distributor, it’s important to make sure the supplier is familiar with dropshipping and blind shipping.
Stable
Normally, a reliable supplier can produce your orders, at least most of them, on time. A stable production lead time is also important because if not, you will be desperated especially when you are running out of key cards.
Also, if your sales representative changed frequently, you’d better figure out the reason.
Both the 2 factors above also reflect how the supplier manages his company.
Product
Quality is the most important to a product. Different factories have their own different QC standards. Therefore, it’s very essential to ask for some samples before you decided to trade with a supplier. Check the printing quality, product quality and chip / magnetic stripe compatibility and performance by yourself, comparing different suppliers’ samples. It helps a lot while making your decision.
But still need to pay attention to your bulk order because some suppliers would choose to show their best samples for presentation, but that doesn’t mean every card in the bulk is the same level with the samples. A QC report would be good but still, you need to check the goods by yourself if you don’t want to ruin your reputation and brand image.
In addition to the product quality, proudct variety is also important.
If a supplier can provide multiple matched products or related products, that would be much more convenient. Such as;
Card holder;
Door hanger;
…
Besides, whether a supplier can provide customized product is definately helping you save your trouble when you need a non-standard product. What’s more, supports customization usually means the supplier has a strong technic support, which can save your time to find another supplier if you are using RFID card for your hotel.
Price
Remember, when you are looking for the cheapst price, you are saying goodbye to “after-sales service”.
As mentioned above, different factories have different QC standards, the product you are buying with cheap price will definately with cheap quality, or poor service, or both if you’re lucky enough.
Request a price list from a few different suppliers, don’t choose the cheapest one, and of course you will not like the highest price. Usually the middle-range price should be reasonable.
If you like one of the suppliers but their cost is higher than you expected, try to nogotiate with them.
Certificates or Videos
If you are not sure whether the supplier exists, ask them for a video, check their workshop and office carefully. Besides, check their location on google map.
And if they can provide some certificates such as ISO 9001:2015, BSCI, SEDEX report, that would be a strong verification.
Besides, you can check whether you can find the supplier on alibaba and global sources for further verification.
But always do not give too many orders to one supplier at the first beginning, even if you are happy with their products and services. Try a few small orders to check their reliability, if possible, try a few trouble orders to see how they respond before you put them to your major supplier’ list.
Start your experience with Nexqo now!