Chinavasion | China Gadgets BlogWholesale Electronics and the Gadget Business

So, you’re coming to the Canton fair to find some new China sources for products.

You’ve got your ticket, the time off is scheduled and the hotel is booked.

But is your visa in order yet, and do you even know which China visa you will need for the Canton Fair?

It may well be the one fly in the ointment this year.

China might have greeted Canton Fair attendees and business visitors sourcing Chinese products with what was an effectively open door in previous years (before the 2008 Olympics) but that has all changed.

You could previously spend less than a day in Hong Kong and get yourself a F visa that gave you time, and entries, to burn. Unfortunately those days are gone.

Unless you are from the US you will now have to settle for a single/dual entry L visa that will only last for one-two months.

In fact, anybody making a quick visit to China to attend the Canton Fair could find valuable days knocked off their quick sourcing trip just because they haven’t done the research over which China visa they need beforehand.

Hong Kong will still be Canton Fair attendees’ main port of call for visas with Hong Kong travel agents still being the main source for visas.

But the price of visas has gone up and you will be expected to pay F visa prices for a two month L visa and will have to wait two days to get it.

While this is OK if you just want to make quick trip to the Canton fair this is not good news for anybody making repeated factory visits, or checking on a line of merchandise, especially if you are not a Hong Kong resident card or US visa holder.

Despite previous promises authorities haven’t come to the party with an easy one-day L or F visa application procedure even now.

US citizens were able to get a six month L visa with five 30 day entries at the time of writing the best deal in anybodies book.

For the time being if you are looking to spend a little more time in China your best option is to go online and find a China-based visa service who will be able to get you a F visa.

You will have to have a whole wad of cash ready and be willing to stay in China for a little while (up to two weeks in some cases) but it is a small price to pay for the security in knowing that you have a six-twelve month multiple entry visa up your sleeve.

Take a look at your sourcing goals and see which visa will suit. Decide what type of visa you want today and start getting in contact with agents either in Hong Kong or China to find out the latest details in the process.

It will save yourself hours in frustration, fear, lost sourcing opportunities and wasted air tickets.

Tired of eBay’s Shtick? we’ve put together a list of eBay alternatives that you can use instead

If you mentioned ecommerce to your grandmother or your crazy uncle Chester, who lives in a log cabin in Montana, then there’s good chance they’d think eBay.

It is certainly true that eBay is the biggest name in town when it comes to online auctions or ecommerce, with alternatives for eBay receiving almost none of the recognition outside of the immediate circle of netizines.

EBay is one of the internets many rags to riches stories. Started in a garage at the start of the 1995 dot com boom the company grew to the point where it’s IPO listing raised $60 million in September 1998.

The ability to buy and sell everything attracted many people, as did the numerous funny auctions, which gathered a lot of the media’s attention.

Things took a turn for the worst in the last few years with a series of policy changes. Changes which disgruntled sellers who have cast about alternative to eBay suspect were designed to attract bigger names to the company, shed some of the smaller sellers or get ‘more bites from the cherry’.

Here are some of the policy changes that eBay has gone through over the last four years:

• Numerous increases in fees
• Sellers are no longer able to leave neutral or negative feedback on buyers accounts
• Pressure in Australia, the UK and now the US to get Paypal as the only electronic payment system on the site.
• Higher volume sellers get discounts and added benefits for staying with the site
• EBooks and other non-physical items can no longer be auctioned

As a result people have been casting about for eBay auction alternatives and eBay alternatives that could give an acceptable amount of eyes for less hassle and cost.

While traffic is always a concern, there is no shortage of eBay alternatives out there and just typing in eBay alternative to Google or yahoo will give you many results. As will a search for online auctions.

Then it’s usually a case of sorting through all the different listing platforms available and seeing if they are, A legitimate, B affordable and C will give you the right amount of converting traffic you need to make the move there worthwhile.

Here are some questions you might want to ask:

• How long have they been around?
• Are the people on this site likely to sell what I have to buy?
• Which country does most of the traffic for this site come from?
• Is the Internet Site a registered company, with a registration number, a street address and postal address and does it have an operating banking system in its country of origin?
• What is their Alexa rating and/or page rank?
• How many other listings are there in the categories you are interested in?
• Are there are range of non PayPal payment options available?
• How well is their site designed?
• Is the customer service section easy to access and staffed by real people?
• Do you have to actually have to set up an account to make an inquiry to customer service?
• Does the site have a 24/7 customer service phone number and a either a live chat and or an email service?
• Do both buyers and sellers have to be verified to avoid fraudulent practices?
• Can you report sellers of fakes, stolen goods and ID theft or stolen credit cards to the website in a reliable and prompt manor?

Unfortunately not everybody has that kind of time. and while their are lists of online auction sites available like F*** eBay but they often leave you in the same position, with a list of sites that you need to check before they can even be considered as an alternative to eBay.

Here at Chinavasion we thought we could go one better, and have put out a list of alternatives for eBay which attempts to answer some of the questions that you would need to ask before signing on with any ecommerce portal.

The list is dynamic so we are always interested in hearing from you if you would like to see any site or any detail added or removed from the list.

Want to learn more about online auction sites and eBay alternatives? Check out these great articles:

• Online Auctions Going Once Going Twice
• EBay Rounding Up Sellers
• The WWW Goes Olympics Crazy And EBay’s Gymnastic Reversal

Chinavasion NewsChina Wholesale

2009 Predictions, Part 1

The Olympics are over, the 3G iPhone, MacBook Air and first phone with a Google Android operating system has been released.

2008 is officially over.

It is time again for everyone to dust off their crystal balls and see if they can be as wrong about 2009 as they were about 2008.

The staff writing the Chinavasion blog has never been afraid of humbling experiences (they build character we’re told) so we decided that we would try to make our picks for 2009.

To make the humiliation picture complete we decided to take a look at a range of fields (after all that’s what we do in the Chinavasion support page.) and do it over two or three days.

So, without further ado…

Prediction #1: the world’s economy won’t crash and burn around our ears.

Half way through 2008 many of the world’s economists predicted that the world would go through an ecopolypse. Some even though the magnitude of this ecopocalypse would be such that it would rival the great depression of the 1920’s and leave us all farming dirt or begging on the streets.

It is true that things haven’t been as rosy in the US, some toy factories in China and the odd tech company But there are a few factors that don’t fit in with this picture.

While I will now need to check my mail for anthrax — there’s nothing worse than saying things won’t be so bad when there is an outside chance they could take a tumble — The signs are there that it won’t be as much of a recession as nay sayers claim it will be.

According to a Pepsi survey, which was just completed a large number of the younger generation are actually optimistic about the future with 57% saying they are looking forward to it.

While a soft drink conglomerate’s marketing campaign might not be the ultimate state of the economy recent global shopping figures certainly back it up.

The UK Christmas sale, Australian Christmas sales and New Zealand Christmas sales were certainly anything but weak. Amazon is another location which enjoyed a bumper Christmas period this year.

Lower housing prices and an overall labour shortage (especially for skilled staff) will mean that people won’t be putting down payments on the Ferrari any tie soon but they won’t be fighting it out for the most sheltered doorways either.

Don’t forget to check out Part 2 and Part 3of this blog to see what gadgets and electronics will be popular in 2009 and what technological developments will arise.

Want to see what type of economic news you missed in 2008? Check out these great articles:

• Global Sources Direct Shuts Down, Wholesaler Chinavasion Responds
• The Great Economic Guessing Game
• Counting The Cost Of The Clean Up

Want to profit by sourcing hot-selling electronics direct from China?

Chinavasion electronics products are available at low wholesale prices, delivered worldwide direct from China.

• 12 Month warranty.
• Top product quality guaranteed.
• Insured trackable shipping.
• Easy online ordering with Paypal (includes all major credit cards).

China Business NewsChina Wholesale