Many of the products and suppliers that shall be introduced to you in this article are made or based in China.

Although we shall also talk about products from the US and Europe, the tips in this article reveal more about buying products from Chinese manufacturers and suppliers. The most likely question on your mind right now would be: Why China? Good question.

I’ll tell you why.

As you may already know (or don’t know), most products in the world today are manufactured in Asia, particularly China. Toys, home appliances, accessories, computers, laptops, mobile phones and even Apple’s iPads are made in China.

Let’s try to verify this by doing a quick check of the products that are around you right now. You would be amazed that roughly 4 out of 5 things around you were manufactured in China.

I’d like to use myself as an example.

The laptop I am using to type these words is a HP Notebook made in China. The shirt I’m wearing, my earphones, my wrist watch and my iPad – all made in China. My mobile phone is probably the only thing that’s ‘Assembled in Brazil’. So the 4 out of 5 theory is true in my case!

Apart from food products, China is the Number One source of all the hot-selling and fast moving consumer products you know.

China is one of the cheapest manufacturers in the world because of its low labour and production costs. As a result, many of the big brands that you know (Apple, HP, Louis Vuitton etc) make their products through factories and contractors based in China.

To ensure the quality of their products are not compromised, US and European countries set very strict standards which the Chinese usually comply with.

Why am I telling you all this? It’s because many people in Africa have come to suspect Chinese products to be low quality.

While this may be true, I don’t think we should blame the Chinese. After all, China also produces many of the high quality products in America and Europe.

If our governments could enforce strict quality and safety standards for products coming into Africa, the Chinese would comply as they do for their clients in the USA and Europe.

However, you don’t have to worry about importing low quality products. In the later part of this article, I’ll share with you the secrets of finding high quality products and suppliers that meet US and European standards.
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