Chinese packaging to goes up in price
2020-06-01
And we should expect it won’t draw back. The surge of demand for hand sanitizer packaging blew like an avalanche and immediately evoked a severe shortage of both the antibacterial liquids and proper containers. The lack of sanitizers got reconciled by cosmetic brands who quickly transformed part their capacities in these terms. Yet, the amount of available packaging for it – tiny PET bottles and suitable closures – remains far below the market’s needs. Manufacturers are working at their limits, but lead time anyway reaches up to 3 to 6 months – both in EU and China, too. In China there are some manufacturers that offer shorter lead times, even under 1 month (not including shipping), but in return charge significantly higher fees. Even if we settle for longer production time, the price will remain above what we’ve been used to. Chinese manufacturers raised prices and all we can do is get used to these new circumstances.
Along with the prices, risk rates increased, too. There’s a number of Chinese companies that lure clients with
short lead times – for 100% against prepayment in return. Clients having no other choice agree with those
terms, and often hit on crooks. Full prepayment doesn’t mean full safety. There’s already been registered
a number of cases where customers received anything but what they’d ordered, scrapped products, or the
manufacturer suddenly tore up the contact and disappeared. Obviously, the safest way is ordering from
well-known suppliers, but in current condition when order queue reaches half a year, reaching for a distributor
would be the best option.
Distributors who have their own affiliate office in China eliminates the chance to meet a dishonest
manufacturer, and has the ability to double-check each order before it leaves China. Second, the distributor
is a local company and functions under the local laws, so there no chance the supplier would take the money
and disappear.