When purchasing machinery from Chinese manufacturers, it goes without saying that prices are generally unmatched. However, as with sourcing anything from Chinese manufacturers, it is usually assumed that there are certain challenges when working with a Chinese supplier. These challenges are often compounded even further when it comes to B2B products with technical specifications and standards. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Toolots’ platform addresses several key pain points faced by both the buyer and the manufacturer. By tackling these challenges, we alleviate much of the risk US machinery buyers normally take on when they purchase from a Chinese manufacturer. It also makes it possible for more manufacturers to expand to the US market, when previously they may not have been able to afford the investment needed to provide adequate after-sales service in the US by American standards.
How does Toolots address these pain points? In this post, we’ll focus on one issue: replacement parts.
Many types of equipment and machinery, such as plastic injection molding machines, will need parts replacement at some point in their life cycle. How do buyers place requests for spare parts for machinery that was made in China? That depends on how the buyer originally purchased their product:
Option 1: Pay a premium to a US distributor
One of the reasons the majority of Chinese machinery manufacturers choose to OEM for US brands instead of attempting their own international sales channels is because these US distributors are able to maintain a supply of spare parts in the US. As such, they are able to meet US customers’ after-sales needs for a smooth and timely process obtaining the parts they need to keep their machines running. Of course, buying Chinese-made machinery from a US brand comes with a premium as compared to purchasing directly from a Chinese vendor.
Option 2: Purchase directly from China
For the Chinese machinery manufacturers who do become vendors themselves on Alibaba and similar sites, many often do offer free spare parts, but the buyer usually has to cover the freight cost, import duties, etc. Moreover, these parts take a long time to ship overseas, meaning operational downtime for the buyer. This means that obtaining the parts from the original supplier is often so costly and time-consuming that the buyer might as well take on the burden of sourcing spare parts locally, assuming the part they’re looking for is generic and compatible.
Option 3: Purchase on Toolots
With Toolots, buyers don’t have to choose between paying a premium to work with a US distributor and facing the challenges of working directly with a Chinese manufacturer.
Our engineers replace a broken part on a chocolate conche.When it comes to spare parts, we ensure that manufacturers honor all warranties and requests for spare parts for their US customers. Because they sell on our platform and we handle the customer service domestically, they are held accountable for meeting US customers’ after-sales service expectations. Moreover, for most of our categories, we require commonly-requested or machine-specific spare parts to be stocked in our US warehouses for timely fulfillment of parts requests.
Check out our story about how we overnighted parts and sent out engineers to fix a chocolate machine on-site when the owner ran into issues.
