In this day and age, it is very common to import products from other countries and then sell them locally. It reduces costs and it allows you to access to a wider range of products and designs. This is good for your business, as customers will appreciate your new products and everybody likes saving some money.

You want your goods to be shipped on time and once you have them, you want to send them fast to the stores so customers can start buying them immediately. But, what would happen if once you receive your products you realize the specifications were not the ones you asked? Or if the quality was so bad, customers wouldn’t even consider buying your products? Or even worse, what if you receive a total different product from the one you ordered? You can negotiate and reach an agreement with the supplier and he can pay for the cost, or give you a discount, but is this enough? What about the time you have lost and the potential customers who stopped buying your products because they were not right? Or even worse, the customers that now are so dissatisfied with your products they are not going to buy from you never again?

You cannot wait until you receive your products, you cannot have a reactive approach; you need to have a proactive approach. You need to make sure those products are good before they leave the factory and once the products are sealed inside a container, you need to know 100% those are the products you ordered and that is the quality you expect from those products.
This is when you can take advantage of using a third party company. Quality Control (QC) companies can verify the quality of your products, test them and monitor the container loading, while you sit on your chair. Using a QC company will avoid you headaches and having to worry about your products. You are getting a confirmation that your products are totally fine, and if they’re not you will find out before the products leave the factory. This gives you a lot of space; you can discuss with the supplier about reworking the order, making some changes or even cancelling the order if the production was a total disaster. You need to anticipate the problems, and it is paramount to know how your products are beforehand.

One company that has taken this to the next level is SBE. Thanks to its own software, SBE is able to perform real time reports. Basically, you can access to the report, findings, comments and pictures while the inspection is being done. You don’t even need to wait until the report is done. You can know what’s happening with your products during the inspection. So you can basically talk with the supplier during the inspection and tell him all the issues you are seeing and ask him to fix them immediately!
In this day and age, importing is very common. But, information travels fast and it’s important to take advantage of it and get as much information as you can. SBE helps you get that information when you need it, and this is something that will ease your importing process.
To know more about SBE, visit their webpage: sbeinspection.com and check their video!