Identify Suppliers
When you are sourcing for a product, you will always look for the best quality materials at the lowest possible cost from the most reliable suppliers. If you are new in the business and not familiar in LED lighting(light source, lighting fixture), it takes you a lot of time seeking and screening out the right suppliers, not to mentioned the latter negotiation, communication and back and forth discussion between you and the suppliers.
LED lighting is relatively technical products, you are likely to take risks from getting the inferior products from suppliers if you do not have the professional background in the lighting industry.
LightRefer has been involved in the lighting business for years, with deep experience and know how of led lighting products. We also know the production and operation of lighting factories, and its QC process, product features, etc. When you choose us to be your sourcing partner, we can find you the most qualified supplier.
Samples collect
If you are seeking different kinds of lighting products, and have samples from several suppliers, we can consolidate your samples(or small orders) and send them to you all together in one shipment via the most economic Express or by sea.
This will save you lots of freight cost especially if you are doing business for projects. When you’ve caught several lighting projects, but the quantity is not big and also not small, it will be very annoying to decide which shipping ways to go, if goes for International Express, like UPS, DHL, FedEx, TNT, etc, delivery time is appealing(normally 5-7 days) but the cost will be too high; if goes by sea, freight cost is reasonable but it takes too long, normally 25-35 days.
Now you can let us help you to arrange the most cost-effective delivery. For your urgent orders, we can collect them all together and send it via the most economic International Express, for the other normal orders, we can collect them and arrange the shipment by LCL or FCL. In a nutshell, we will do our best to save the freight cost for you.
Negotiation
After you finalize the supplier, we can negotiate with the supplier on behalf of you about the products specification, price, payment term, delivery time, etc.
Following is the frequently negotiated topics with suppliers:
Payment Term: T/T, L/C, etc, most of the suppliers prefer T/T, and that is 30% T/T in advance, balance before shipment.
Price Term: Ex-factory price or FOB price. FOB term is more popular in today, but there are still many original manufacturers work on EXW price.
Delivery time: normally 3-5 days for samples, and 20-35 days for official order, delivery day depends on how your product assemble and how supplier arrange production schedule for your order.
Product specification: such as luminous efficiency, LED Chip, CRI, warranty period etc, although the product spec are mainly link to price, there are still many aspects can be negotiated.
The process of negotiation with suppliers are complete transparent to you, emails will be CC to you and you make the finalization.
Order Processing
After you placed order to suppliers, we start following up with suppliers and update to you order status and schedule. Andwe will process all necessary files required for the custom. The order running procedures are like this:
PO Released – Order requirement received and PO released(You), supplier received your PO then prepare PI and send back to you, normally it takes 1 – 2 days
Arrange down payment – After received PI, you start to arrange the down payment(normally 30% T/T of the PI value) and send the bank slip to supplier, normally 3 – 7 days (it can be even longer depends on banks operation).
Place Order – Supplier place order inside (send to procurement, PMC, production, engineering), it takes 1 working day.
Material Preparation – PMC will check the material inventory status and inform Procurement prepare materials that are lack of. Preparation time will be way different, depends on products and suppliers. E.g. For electronic materials, such as capacitors, diodes, PCB, IC, LED chips, etc, normally it takes 15- 20 days; for housing materials or metal/PC materials, it takes around 7-15 days.
Running Production – Start running production when all the materials are prepared, normally it takes 10 – 15 days depends on your order quantity, product assemble status and the number of workers.
Packing – Products that pass quality check (aging test, electrical parameter test and on-off test) start being packed, normally it takes 1 – 2 days.
Above order procedures are apply to common products and not for peak season. For peak season, the time can be longer, especially for material preparation time and production times(workers shortage problem and order scheduling).
Knowing when your order will be running and how your products being produced will be very important, LightRefer can be your Eyes and Ears and ensure you receive good quality products.
Logistic Management
LightRefer will handle your entire freight including customs clearance. All the paper work and processing is our job. The orders will show up right to your loading dock, we make it as simple as that.
Unlike most freight forwarders, we don’t have to work with 3rd party agents because our team is IN Shenzhen, China and we always have control of your cargo from origin to destination. With our headquarters in Shenzhen means we can take the advantage of Fast, Efficient and Convenience in logistic service, since Shenzhen Port is one of world’s busiest container ports.
Our years of exporting experience in China will ensure that we can get the most competitive price and efficient way to delivery your goods. If you have less than a full container load, we try to combine orders with our other customers.
We offer the following freight forwarding options:
Air Express (about 4 – 10 days)
Air Freight (about 6 – 10 days)
Fast Sea Freight (about 20 – 25 days)
Standard Sea Freight (about 31 – 35 days)
Don’t waste your time on this non-value adding chore. Let LightRefer do it for you!