One way to find higher quality equipment suppliers on alibaba (maybe)

Pick your search term. I know, let’s look for rotary evaporators… it turns out I still need one of those.

Head to Alibaba and search for Verified Suppliers only.

A bunch of results will come up. You’ll notice that if you hover over the Verified mark on the listing, you’ll see a note as to who did the certification. I usually make my first stops at suppliers that have paid for TÜV Rheinland to inspect their facility.

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Why? Because the Germans don’t fuck around. They cost more, you don’t get to bribe them to look the other way, and they are known to be thorough. Any company that shells out for the TÜV inspection is probably at least marginally less likely to be selling garbage.

With that said, SGS and Intertek do fine work as well, and a TÜV inspection is not a guarantee of a single goddamn thing except that the report generated is almost certainly accurate to what the inspector saw that day.

How the company operates on any other day may be different.

One of the companies that I find is Henan Lewin Industrial Development Co., Ltd. Click through to the Company overview. Under Annual Production Capacity, I see one listing: Oil Press Machine, 200 sets per month.

That means that the only thing they actually manufacture in-house is an Oil press machine. Anything else they sell is made by someone else. Does that mean anything else they sell is crap? No, but I found about 20 companies that meet my first pass criteria on the first page of Alibaba, so I’m going to move on.

Next up, Guangzhou Fan Bo Lun Import And Export Trade Co., Ltd. Annual production capacity:
Short Path Distillation 100 Sets Per Month
Vacuum Drying Oven 80 Sets Per Month
Rotary Evaporator 70 Sets Per Month
High Press Reactor 50 Sets Per Month
Glass Reactor 50 Sets Per Month

Well, that’s more promising. There are 3 inspection reports. The parent/front company is the import/export company, which is partnered with the manufacturer. This is a common structure in China.

It looks like the main Production Machinery is all hand-operated stuff. Is this bad? Not necessarily. They don’t make their own glass, which isn’t uncommon, especially for smaller companies.

There’s Quality Control on all production lines, QA is independent of the production line. That’s not bad.

The Supplier management and After Sales service sections show that they seem to mostly have their shit together.

Under Production process, I like that it says 100% of finished products get a detailed inspection. However, they don’t keep certain records.

The R&D capacity section looks not bad too.

All in all, would I consider buying from this company?

There are a whole bunch more companies I’m going to filter through first, but if this one has what appears to be the correct product for my application, at the right price range, I’d definitely consider them.


The next step is to visit the factory. Walk the factory floor, see it for yourself.

That’s hard to do these days, but it greatly increases your chances of finding good equipment.

Happy sourcing.

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Another great start from @Lincoln20XX!!

He’s giving you all some opportunities to build your own little slice!!

Awesome write up!!

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Epic post as usual. As you observed, visiting the factory isn’t very easy right now.

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Screenshot_20210309-193227_Chrome

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Unless you want a swab in your thigamabob.

Nice write up.

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I feel like it would be a huge asset to have a chinese speaker/reader. You could probably just employ a chinese stoner to do the conversations. Anyone seen Xiaomanyc 小马在纽约

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For those who have never seen, his videos are pretty funny. Whitest kid you know surprising chinese people with his linguistic skills.

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Thumpers not far from the truth. Many in this industry hire translators / purchasers who speak chinese.

There are translator services you could use. I know in the hospital we have a service we can call upon. Speakerphone ftw

Edit… three way calling ftw in this case

These people speak good English. No need for most of that.

I think once you build a trusting relationship with some of these vendors. They will practically do anything for you. Most of my suppliers will send stuff before the wire even clears.

There has been several times were trust has been tested to the point where no questions are even asked at this point. Paid when Invoices are marked paid and not really paid. Lost shipments that show up months later. That have been replaced and when the other shipment shows you pay. These trust building exercises help when you really need it onnthr future.

I’ve never needed any translators dealing in china

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Being running alibaba about 11 years, I agree on your supplier screening rule, especially the German( TUV) part.

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