F.A.Q.

Raw materials usually decide what countries are the best to go for manufacturing. Countries that have the raw materials to produce your unique product with, are usually the cheapest and most experienced. Each country specializes in different industries.

No sourcing company can eliminate all risk in overseas manufacturing. If any company does claim that “RUN”. That being said Asian American Sourcing Alliance (AASA) does eliminates most of the risk by doing the following:

A. Learning about your products, goals and expectations.
B. Making sure we find the perfect factory. We do this by evaluating several factories and share our results with you (Factory audit).
C. Managing your factory on a daily bases.
D. Several strong inspections of your products, at all phases, starting with raw materials, to completed production, and finally a 3rd party inspection.

You will have three sets of people for communication:

A. Asian American Sourcing Alliance (AASA) USA based account representative.
B. Asian account manager, bridge between factory and your company.
C. Factory directly (if and when needed).

The only way to evaluate a factory is to go down meet with them and review them. This will not be possible by reviewing websites or speaking to them by email or by phone. Some of the best factories have terrible websites and do not speak English well, or at all. Some of the worst factories have great websites and not only speak English well, they are great sales people too.

You cannot judge a book by its cover. You need to spend real time at the factory and learning much about them before you can evaluate them. This cannot be done by an email relationship or reviewing their websites!

Yes, any time! We will even coach you in 'best practices' when communicating with factory staff.

When and if you communicate with the factory, we ask you to copy in your account manager(s) at all times. If a phone call is required, your account manager(s) should be on the call too.

We have a onetime fee up front, and then $125.00 every month for containing support.

We never make any markup or commission on bulk overseas manufacturing.

We want you to have a terrific relationship with your factory! The group that pays the factory will have the most power with the factory. We want that to be you!

Paying the factory directly has many benefits including building a solid foundation with factory management team.

If any of our customers are not happy with the selected factory, we can do many things:

First thing is to get a solid understanding of why you are not satisfied and to try to correct it with the factory. (AASA) will be very involved in it trying to improve factory performance and communication.

If our best efforts failed, and you are still not satisfied with the factory, (AASA) will start the process again and find you a new factory that is more compatible to your needs.

95% of the times, our clients are satisfied with factory selection from our first choice. That being said it is our responsibility to find you a great long-term relationship with a factory even if it takes more than one try.

There is NO additional fee for this.

Asians are great in copying your drawings and producing product for less pricing than American and Canadian based companies could. However, these countries are not good in creating, designing, and being original. Asian workforce lags behind are creativity. If you ask the Asian engineer to design something that does not exist or make modifications to products, you are setting them up for failure.

All creativity, drawings and prototypes should be made in the USA or Canada not Asia!

Freight out of Asia to USA is 45-60 days. East coast is longer transit time then west coast.

Freight out of Vietnam and India is 45-60 days. East coast is longer transit time then west coast.

Our freight partners not only will get you the best prices possible, but they will provide you with terrific customer service. Feel free to use our partners or your own.

It is a very competitive world out there. Most consumers are looking for the best prices possible. Making your product in Asia allows you to reduce your cost of goods by 30-70% compared to USA and Canada best manufacturing price.

The spread in savings based on your product type and industry you are serving. The lower your cost of goods, the cheaper your price can be to the consumer.

The more expensive your product is, the more limited the market you have to sell it too. The cheaper your retail price is, the wider the range of potential customers purchasing your products.

That said, not every product produced in Asia allows for cost savings. When you speak to us, we will review your product, industry and costing strategies. We will tell you up front if your product made for Asian manufacturing.

About 90% of all products coming to us will brings real cost savings with overseas manufacturing.

AASA is the most complete sourcing and overseas manufacturing company in North America. We offer so many services its almost impossible to use them all. Pick and choose what you want to use from us.

That being said we do suggest you review and evaluate ( as many of our services as possible) to see if its the right fit and choice for you. Our team and partners know how to bring consumer products to market!

NO! We are the only sourcing company we know of that does not make any profit on bulk orders.(NO COMMISSION TAGGED TO ORDERS).

We do this so you get the best possible price overseas, therefore have the greatest chance to be successful. Instead we make our money from the one time upfront fee and monthly fees each month.

Many agents and souring companies make money on both fees and high commissions. Some sourcing agents make as much as 35% commission or more. You pay the factories direct. We make 0% commissions on all of your orders.

AASA team in the USA is only as good as our staff on the ground in Asia. Our overseas staff is located on the ground in Asia.

We have about 12 overseas team members. There titles consist of Engineers , project managers, and sourcing experts. Our staff is trained to evaluate factories, build strong relationships with supply base and managed quality and timelines. After prices are given out and approved by your side, you will be introduced to your oversea’s team leader.

Most of the products that AASA will be introduced to will need more then one factory. The more complicated the product is, the more likely additional factories will be needed to produce your unique product. Its AASA job to make sure that all the factories work together with one common goal. That is to produce the best quality product with favorable pricing. In many cases the lead factory ( main factory) will be responsible in managing the other factories with AASA help.

Having a sales strategy is critical for the success of your company. Selling direct to consumers or selling your products to USA and Canadian retailers AASA can help with both. We will teach you how to build a sales-force. We will also introduce you to our partners who are experts in the field in building web base sales or selling to retailers….Our business partners will help you drive traffic to your site.It does not matter how good of a job we do for you with overseas manufacturing , if your not successful selling your products. AASA job is completed not when your product arrives to North America, But when your products sell. LETS US HELP YOU WITH SALES FOR THE USA & CANADA MARKETS.

Yes…. We will never let anyone know who your factory is. Keeping your suppliers confidential is critical. If your competition finds out who your factories are, this can cause allot of pain. This is personal business information that will never be shared with anyone.

We will send you a contract by email. Its calls out what our responsibilities are with detailing what you should expect from AASA. We clearly call out the cost for our services so they will be no surprises. This contract protects both sides (AASA and you).

Yes, certainly. We accept customers from USA and Canada as both countries have very similar laws.

Yes, we have engineers located at each country ( Asia). They are fully educated and have years of experiences managing product development and overseeing quality on orders. These staff members are critical to AASA success. Not only are they capable of reading drawings, they have the skill set to suggest product enhancements and call out ways to improve manufacturing efficiency.

We hope you choose us ( AASA). But if you have other options, make sure their USA based and have staff on the ground at origin where your manufacturing is located. A USA based sourcing company has lots of advantages. They are familiar with USA and Canadian law and are bound by it. They are available during working hours. Strong communications skills. A true understanding of how to be successful in the North American markets as our standards are higher than Asian markets. You will have a much better experience dealing with a sourcing partner located in North America soil vs. having a sourcing company based in Asia.

Paying the factory directly has allot of advantages. You truly know what the real cost is, as paying a middleman hides the true cost of goods. Paying the factory directly also gives you some pull with supplier as the payer earns some power and respect from factory management team. Paying the factory directly gives you more control.

We would like you to call us for a meeting. We will clearly call out what the fees are during our phone conversation. We will also back this up with a detailed contract protecting both sides. You will fully understand by the end of the call our fees so they will never be any surprises.

If you do your homework you will find out that are fees are much much less then any other overseas sourcing company. We also offer so much more services for your money.

We truly earn every penny we receive from you. We will call it value added strategies by hiring us. Who you hire for a sourcing company might just be the biggest decision you make for your company. We are very affordable and efficient.

AASA makes sure that any factory we choose to do business with has high criteria for working conditions for each and every staffer. We also make sure that there is no child labor. In addition each worker must have a safe environment and get paid for work they do.

We understand that in many of these Asian factories will not have the same standard as European, USA or Canadian standards. That being said we do pay strong attention to social compliance’s and we demand from the factory a good working environment for all there staffers.

If a factory does not meet our standards they will not be allowed to bid on your product. This is one of the reasons why AASA does a full factory audit before allowing any factory to price out products.

Most of our customers will keep us hired for the long term as our monthly fees are very small price to pay considering all we can do for your company on a daily bases. Most of our customer base sees AASA as value added for a very small monthly fee.

That being said we understand as our customer you have options, and if they day comes you no longer feel you need us, we make it very easy for you to move on with the factory without us.

We call it an exit strategy that allows you to break our contract for a very very small fee.

Please contact us and we will explain the costs along with the details of this exit strategy . The details to this exit strategy is also called out on your contract.