A Huge Project from an Airline Company: Turning the Impossible into Possible

Customer Background

A Taiwan-based customer is seeking a low-budget supplier that can provide high-quality products for their first-class client as souvenirs, with a large order quantity. Despite reaching out to several factories, they have been unable to find the right supplier. 

Problem

The primary challenge is that the customer's target price is extremely low, almost at break-even point for our costing. However, they are able to place large orders, around 100K units per order. To secure this business, we need to identify a reliable supplier for materials and accessories to obtain better pricing, allowing us to maintain a minimal profit margin for production. Additionally, the item involves glue work and multiple stitching processes, which we believe may be difficult for many factories to handle at such large quantities within a short production lead time, while still maintaining high quality. This is the key reason why the customer has been unable to find the right supplier to meet their production requirements.

Our Solution

First, our purchasing team reached out to all our suppliers to discuss the inquiry. We emphasized that the order would go to the supplier who could meet our budget while maintaining high quality. After a day of discussions, a material supplier, zipper supplier, and metal logo supplier agreed to our price while ensuring the quality remained consistent. We then confirmed the order with the customer and proceeded to create a sample. Upon reviewing the sample, the customer requested the first production run of 100K units within a month. At that time, we had other products already in production. However, after an internal review and adjustment of our production schedule, our production manager assured us that we could meet the deadline. We accepted the first order and completed the production run on time.

During the inspection of the first production batch, the customer's QC manager was impressed that we met the deadline and passed the AQL for shipment. He informed his management that we were a reliable supplier. As a result, we have now been working with this customer for nearly four years, with a stable order flow.