One Man’s Challenge is Another Man’s Treasure - Home Building Materials, part 4

Sourcing products from China can seem like reaching an arm into a black-hole. You are unknowing to the supplier’s results of quality, meeting deadlines and expectations or even knowing if the product will sell in your market. Leveraging its experience in the construction industry, Sourcejuice continues the “One Man’s Challenge is Another Man’s Treasure” series giving you an insight into what’s on the other side.

This article will discuss which items can be maintained in inventory for small to medium sized building supply houses. We will also discuss items that can be sold to commercial real estate developers.

In the previous articles we discussed what products builders buy. These sourcing guides are geared toward products that can be sold direct to builders because they are the big ticket items that relate to the largest pain-points on builder’s budgets.

Part 1 - Plumbing, Sheetrock, Trim, Stairparts, Trim, Kitchen Cabinetry

Part 2 - Knowing your customer, the builder/developer

Part 3 - Appliances, Hardwood Flooring, High End Roofing Tiles, Custom Doors, Fireplaces, Travertine Tile, Lighting

Commercial Real Estate Developers
There are an unlimited amount of products that can be sourced relative to the development of commercial real estate or subdivisions. Not only the materials for the buildings themselves, but the components to get the property ready to build on can be sourced.

Here is a budget for development of a 5 lot subdivision in Georgia. From this budget you can derive a short-list of items that can be sourced for or sold to commercial developers. Keep in mind that most US subdivisions are atleast 40 lots, so these budgetary figures will grow accordingly.

•Sewer Pump Station Components - on properties that include land mass with a steep incline to the street, a pumping station will be required to service the sewer. Stations for the commercial application can range from $80,000 to $375,000. These stations include, sometimes county specific specifications for their construction so a scenario where sourcing an entire station for mass production might not apply. The components contained within these stations are expensive and could be produced over-seas for use in implementation into these stations. These components can include: high pressure pumps, electronics used for management and monitoring, steel deck plating, valves, etc.
Here are some schematics that can help in determining feasibility of importations of products for the construction of a pumping station.

•Pre-fabricated Metal Buildings - Commercial development contractors in the US typically do a “design-to-build” turn-key solution for metal buildings. You either provide them specifications or architectural plans and they quote the project, many times including development cost for the property. From there, the major components that make up the frame of the building are produced elsewhere in the US and shipped to the construction site for installation. The industry of importing these buildings in pieces, pre-fabricated from China is soaring and there companies that have been engaging in this business to manufacture pre-fabricated buildings for developments in the US since 1995. Check out this article. With the residential housing market at an all-time low, developers have begun to diversify their portfolio with commerical investments. Are these developers looking or already performing this business in China? It would pay to find out. The industry for metal building’s “revenue for the year 2007 was approximately $7.9 billion USD, with an estimated gross profit of 27.9%. Import was valued at $183.2 million USD from 34 countries.” Check the market research here. If you can source these products yourself and have the commercial real estate contacts, then you could be the next major player.

•Lamp Poles - these items can be purchased or leased from the power company during final stages of development, but the developer has the option of installing them themselves. These poles are relatively expensive so sourcing them from China is an ideal product to import. Their construction is modular so shipping can be maximized on this import.

Check out a subdivision development plan with lamp pole location highlighted. I see at-least a container of lamp poles just in phase 1.

•Sewer and Storm Drain concrete conduits
•Water and Fire lines
•Fire Hydrants
•Street Signs - If you want to purchase street signs for developments without going to China, buy from someone who does. Check out Global Home Construction.
•Retaining Wall Blocks
•Erosion Control

Power and Cable television lines are typically purchased and installed by the service providers themselves. During the development cycle a developer will provide blueprints indicating the layout and they handle the rest. These items are not good sourcing items unless you have a relationship with one of these providers. These lines that run inside the house may be good housing items to source as they can be sold directly to electrical contractors.

Small to Medium Sized Building Supply Houses
Sourcing items in this category are ones that:
•Will have a high volume of sales, maintaining constant amount of inventory while still purchasing regularly every 30 days.
•Items that are common purchases to builders
•Have good margin for profit after import
•Low individual cost per item
•Are not typically items sold by a lumber yard
•Can be mixed with the rest of your US domestic products for a seamless product-line.
•Can be packaged as a turn-key solution for installation

These items are include:
•Interior trim and moldings
•Interior and exterior door locks
•Exterior doors: front doors, metal doors, sliding glass doors
•Exterior cornicing materials
•Kitchen cabinets
•Contemporary Chinese lavatories
•Plumbing fixtures
•Lighting fixtures and fans

dylan@sourcejuice.com // Dylan Blankenship

August 25, 2008 | Filed Under Sample Reviews, Sourcing Guides | Leave a Comment

Bluetooth Phone for Skype / VoIP Review

Today we introduce our first review of a VoIP phone that can be used with Skype, MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk. This phone (model WH100) is manufactured by the TGE Group out of Shenzhen, China. As more and more people start using VoIP services such as Skype for their day to day communication, the market for devices that feel like regular phones is sure to increase. Add in bluetooth and you’ve essentially duplicated the feeling of a cordless phone, but with the low cost afforded by VoIP.

The WH100 comes with professional retail packaging that is suitable for resale in western markets. The contents are visible through the front of the box allowing the phone and the included USB Bluetooth connector to be seen. The product is marked FC/CE compliant.

The phone itself is stylish, with grey plastic and a black bevel. The phone feels solidly built with regards to fit and finish but the quality of the plastic could better. The buttons are easy to access and the navigation control falls in a natural position.

Recharging as well as system connection is done using the standard mini-USB port on the bottom of the phone.

We were pleasantly surprised at how well the installation process went. After placing the CD into the drive on our Windows XP Professional laptop, we plugged in the included USB bluetooth adapter. We are told that if your system already has bluetooth, you don’t need this adapter but we did not verify all functionality. Once plugged in, Windows recognizes the device and the familiar ‘Found New Hardware’ balloon is displayed. Without even pointing to the driver, we received the message that our new hardware was ready to use.

Once the bluetooth is installed, we selected the “Pairing” button on the phone and the screen displayed “Bluetooth is connecting. Please wait.”

Within a few seconds Windows popped up a message informing us that a bluetooth device was trying to connect. Clicking on the balloon authorized this connection.

Once all this setup was complete, we were keen to try the phone with Skype! With Skype opened, I clicked the “call” button on the phone and received a message on the laptop screen from Skype, informing me that a device was trying to connect.

After authorization, all my contacts came up on the phone screen, indicating also whether they were on or offline.

The screen quality is good but there are a few issues to note:

1. The text comes very close to the edges of the phone screen, making it a bit hard to read.
2. The screen is black and white and so the only way to distinguish between an online person and an offline person is a little X or + mark.
3. There is no way to only view online contacts so if you have a long contact list, it’s a bit difficult to navigate.

We often use SkypeOut to call landline phones and I was pleasantly impressed that dialing +1 and then a number did in fact execute a SkypeOut call. Overall the phone quality was decent. There did appear to be a bit of a “hum” in the background, which the manufacturer says should not be there. I cannot confirm whether it was an issue with the phone itself or with our connection, but it’s something to test yourself further with a sample if you’re interested in selling these types of products, whether from this manufacturer or another. The advertised range is 30 feet, but I think about 15 feet is more reasonable based on our experience.

Overall this is a good entry into the Skype phone market. It isn’t the highest end one but if you’re looking to import phones, TGE Group is worth talking with. Our contact there is Kevin Zhang and he can be reached at Email image created with safemail.justlikeed.net . You’re welcome to also contact us for more information or assistance through our Contact Us link!

January 3, 2008 | Filed Under Sample Reviews | 1 Comment

Solar Powered Device Charger Reviewed

We’ve had several readers express interest to us about sourcing environmentally friendly/green products. In the spirit of giving readers what they’re looking for (that’s our job!), here is a review of a quality solar powered device charger we’ve located.

Solar Charge Open

This unit is designed and marketing by a company called Sunnytech, located in NanShan, Shenzhen. Upon receiving the sample, the first thing we took note of was the quality of the packaging. The unit comes in a very nice box which is very much suitable for resale in the US and Europe.

In fact, this is the same box that our HTC Tytn II mobile phone came in, which is a very high end phone. This must be a relatively up scale box that several of the Chinese manufacturers are using now. The vendor is open to re-branding/re-packaging so if you’re interested in selling this product you will be able to re-brand it with your own company information.

When opening the box, the unit sits in the middle, surrounded by a black velvet liner. This definitely improves the appearance of the unit and puts the package as a whole into “quality” territory.

Pulling up on the yellow (silk?) loop reveals the instruction manuals. The manuals are in Chinese but again, the company is open to re-branding and re-packaging. You shouldn’t have a problem having instruction manuals done in English or another language suitable for your country.

Under the instruction manuals is a velvet platform that includes an AC adapter and seven adapters. The AC adapter can be used to charge the unit outside of solar so that it can also be a store of power. For example, if you are going on a long trip you may decide to charge the unit with AC power and keep topping it up via solar. The adapters fit the major cell phone brands. The standard USB adapter fit our phone in the office just fine. Included also is a USB cable. One side of this cable plugs into the unit’s ‘power out’ and the other side is where you plug the various adapters into.

The unit itself has a velvet-y feel to it and feels solid and well manufactured. The logo is placed on the top along with an engraved company name where you open it from. Again, these can be replaced with your company’s information. In fact, the factory showed us several other examples with the China Mobile and Nokia labels as they purchase from Sunnytech as well.

The unit feels a bit large but can easily be held in hand.

On the front of the solar charger, you can set the voltage out depending on what you want to charge. The options are 4.5 volts, 5.0 volts, 6.3 volts and 9 volts. This covers the general range of mobile devices.

On the right side, the unit sports a USB-OUT slot, an LED.OFF.ON switch and a DC-IN slot where you connect the included AC adapter to.

Below is a picture of the included USB cable connected to one of the included adapters.

If you are interested in contacting Sunnytech directly, it’s best to speak with Vanilla Wu. Her English is quite good and she has helped SourceJuice arrange for this review. Her phone number is +86 13823283738 and can also be reached via email at . Their English website is http://www.china-solar-charger.com/index.

Inside the factory is a typical production line where the components are assembled manually by hand.

The unit itself goes through many steps of manufacture and here is an almost finished unit, with the inside components intact but not yet placed in the outside case.

The units are placed in foam layered padding.

We hope you enjoyed our first “green” product review and that our readers find it interesting as an option to source. For more information if you have any questions, please fill out the contact us form at the top of the page.

The SourceJuice Team

December 7, 2007 | Filed Under Sample Reviews | Leave a Comment

Solid iPhone Case Discovered

We’ve found it! The holy grail of iPhone cases! Take a look on Ebay or in stores online and you’ll find no shortage of iPhone cases claiming to be made of high quality materials. However in our experience, they all fall short in some way. Either they have a cheap hinge, the belt click is very lightweight, the plastic scratches easily or what have you.

If you’re currently selling iPhone cases in quantity or are interested in becoming a distributor, Rio United, Ltd. is looking for you and their cases are really in a class by themselves. Have a look at this video demonstration:

The case comes in a blister pack with clear English suitable for resell in the US and Europe.

In addition to the case itself, Rio United also sells a ‘cupholder/suction cup’ add-on that works very well with this case. With the case and the cupholder add-on paired together, you can essentially hold your iPhone in any standard size cupholder for GPS use etc.

The cupholder add-on unscrews open, exposing some storage space.

Once unscrewed, the top of the cupholder add-on can be used as a suction cup on a window. The iPhone twists vertically or horizontally, with a total of 22 different angles that it can ‘click’ into. The hinge itself is made of magnesium.

Another area that sets this iPhone case apart from others we’ve seen is the extremely solid clip. The clip is made of cast aluminum. As you can see below, it’s solid.

Here’s what the clip looks like without the metal exposed for the demo.

Rio United also sells this case designed for a variety of other phones including the Motorola Q and various Blackberrys. They will also be introducing one for the i-Pod Touch shortly.

Rio United is currently quoting an initial FOB price of $14USD per case when purchased in quantities of 1,000. At quantities of 10,000 they are open to private branding and other mutually beneficial relationships.

The marketing and sales director’s name is Gary Lo and he can be contacted in Hong Kong at +852 2420 2027 or via email at sales@riounited.com. Everyone who we spoke with at Rio United spoke English well. However if you’d like some assistance with initial communications please feel free to contact us and we’ll lend a hand!

The SourceJuice Team

October 21, 2007 | Filed Under Sample Reviews | 2 Comments

The phantom product and our first sample, part 2

Eager to get our hands on our new 2.4ghz camera, we opened the box as soon as we got home. One of my biggest gripes about products that come out of China is how obviously “un-ready” they are for the US market. Don’t get me wrong, the hardware appeared to be of good quality. However the packaging and instruction manual were simply not up to snuff. If you had purchased this product in The Home Depot or Lowe’s, you would not be happy with this product’s initial appearance. Let’s use this opportunity to break down the box and packaging to show what we are looking out for and what you should too, unless of course the factory allows you to submit your own packaging.

First, the outside of the box:

Front
2.4ghz Camera - Front of the box

It’s clear this box is very generic and that this factory uses this same box for any number of cameras. If you’re buying this product in bulk to use for your own company, perhaps in your own warehouses or similar, this may not be an issue. However if you’re planning on reselling this camera in your home market, this box isn’t going to cut it. It needs to be specific to the product which it contains.

Bottom
2.4ghz Camera - Bottom of the box

The bottom of the box confirms our suspicion. There are checkboxes for all different model numbers, power types, PAL vs NTSC, and receiver type.

Side Specs
2.4ghz Camera - Side of the box
What’s interesting is that even though this box can hold any number of cameras, the factory managed to pin down exact specs. Do all the possible camera combinations that can go in this box all share the exact same specs? Perhaps. But who knows.

Certifications
2.4ghz Camera - Certifications
With everything going on right now in the news about poor quality products and recalls, we plan to spend more time analyzing product certifications and eventually get into doing our own material quality tests. Again, is it possible all the cameras that can go in this box have all of these certifications? Possibly. But who knows.

Inside
2.4ghz Camera - Inside the box
When we opened the box, this is what we were greeted by. It’s not terrible but overall it’s cheap looking, poor quality packaging.

Directions
2.4ghz Camera - Directions
And the directions… oh the directions! Please see the example above. Notice the run on, sometimes incomplete and in general incorrect grammar. Could the end user understand what to do? Sure. But is this US market ready? Clearly not.

In summary, our goal to seek out a really cool WIFI camera was a bit of a bust. However, many of the reasons we started this website to begin with is to point out what we already knew.. that the products on the market are typically not US market ready and that it’s difficult to seek out quality factories that make quality products and do business at a western standard. We will continue to seek these out and present them to our readers!

In the meantime, please look at the right side of this blog at the quick poll we are running! We are going to the Hong Kong Electronics and Components Show on Oct. 12-15. We’re looking forward to visiting the 2500+ vendors there on your behalf and seeking out the best products! So far GPS products are showing the most interest. Place your vote now!

October 13, 2007 | Filed Under Sample Reviews | Leave a Comment

The phantom product and our first sample, part 1

As we begin to ramp up our sourcing blog and bring you, the reader, up to date information on interesting products being produced in the Pearl River Delta, we set our sights on a WI-FI surveillance camera.

WIFI Camera

This camera was to be the panacea of easy home security. The wireless camera should be able to sit anywhere in your house or office and come to life upon sensing motion. The camera would have an IP address and sit on your wireless network as if it was a computer. From any computer on the internet, you would be able to log in to the feed and monitor your home. We had to get one to try it out!

What followed was all to typical in China and so although we did not wind up successful in acquiring a sample to review, there is an even more important information that can be shared. Our experience trying to locate this camera illustrates exactly the challenges in sourcing from a country like China and hopefully lays down for the novice some things to watch out for. And for those with more experience in sourcing, perhaps you can gleam a chuckle if you have had similar experiences.

The first problem we encountered was that this same WIFI camera appeared to come from numerous sources at AliBaba. To find out who actually made the darn thing, we first eliminated vendors that had offices in NanShan, Futian etc and focused on vendors who actually had industrial space in Bao An, Buji, etc. These were more likely to be actual factories as opposed to trading companies or resellers. A few calls later and we narrowed it down to a factory in Buji that claimed to be the factory that makes the WIFI camera. We made an appointment the following day at 10:30am to go visit.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by a nice enough Chinese sales representative who appeared quite new. We asked to have a look at the WIFI camera that we had seen on their AliBaba webpage but it appeared the gentleman was being a bit elusive, unwilling to allow us access to the product we had discussed on the phone the day before. He goes off to discuss with his boss and came back with the following answer: This product was made under a special order for a customer and only 20 were made, before the customer decided not to follow through with the order. What we were hearing was quite shocking. Here is a product that is blasted all over AliBaba, appears to be sold by numerous vendors and this factory who over the phone claims to make it in their own Buji factory, is now saying that it doesn’t exist. Were we being cheated?

Not to ruin the trip and since we were really interested in the concept of WIFI cameras in general, we asked what other products they have that may be of interest to us. Unfortunately they didn’t have a single camera that sits on a WIFI network. They did however have a nice range of 2.4ghz cameras and we asked to see some. We found this product interesting because of its weight and quality appearance:

2.4ghz Camera - Front

2.4ghz Camera - Side

Since one of the goals of this website is to review products for you all, we asked for a sample. Again we were met with some resistance. The salesperson was new and claimed he wasn’t authorized to give a sample. Mind you we were not demanding a free sample. We were willing to leave a deposit and return the item later. We were also willing to buy the sample outright if necessary. Nonetheless the salesperson insisted he needed to talk with his boss and the boss was not available until tomorrow. He would have to get back to us. A bit frustrated about the apparent waste of a trip out to this factory, we left, thanking him for his time and telling him we would contact him tomorrow.

Sure enough the following day the salesperson invited us back to pick up the sample. We would need to leave a 450RMB deposit, but that it would be reimbursed upon either an order or the return of the sample. Another trip out to the factory, 2 hours away, and we had our sample in hand.

October 13, 2007 | Filed Under Sample Reviews | Leave a Comment