– Prevent any poor-quality shipment: Let’s start with the basics. Procurement from lower-costs countries means more exposure to potential quality issues. You may feel that 9 out of 10 inspections were not necessary, but that 1 shipment with issues alone justifies systematic control.
– Ensure your supplier is not subcontracting your production to another factory. In certain Asian countries this happens a lot, especially during peak seasons. Some importers only find out too late that the actual manufacturer had much lower quality standards in place.
– Minimize the stress of not being sure : If you import from the other side of the planet, you may live with a constant and heavy doubtfor weeks. You can wave off that pressure for only a couple of hundred dollars with a random pre-shipment inspection.
– Take informed decisions: A good quality inspection report gives you an overview of the quality of your products. It contains all the pictures you need, the performance info and results of the function tests, and the clear statistical estimation of the overall quality.
– Keep a gentle pressure on your supplier to maintain or improve the quality of your products. Because the inspection result may condition/ trigger the balance payment of your order, manufacturers are very likely to take more care of your order’s quality if they know it will be inspected. The detailed information in a good inspection report will enhance your communication with your supplier and allow them to gradually improve the quality.
– Anticipate and solve potential issues weeks in advance: Sometimes you may find out after an inspection that the goods are not totally up to your expectations and need some rework. You can save a lot of time and money doing the rework on-site as opposed to doing it at your own premises or destination country.
– It takes years to build a reputation but only a minute to ruin it. This needs few additional comments. The inspection is a must for minimizing the risk of brand image damages. Not only are you much more likely to minimize the quality risk and cost, you can also use a third party’s report as a backup in case you need to discuss a potential blame.
– A perfect sample and/or photos from your supplier are not enough! Any importer should be aware of the fact that the process of doing golden samples may turn out to be completely different from running full-scale mass production.
