A lot of the souvenirs on Australian shelves are made overseas, and many of them in China. If you’re a brand, an importer or a business with an idea for a product, sooner or later you’ll wonder how to go about getting something made there.
I’ve made 49 sourcing trips to China. I won’t pretend there’s a simple formula, because every product is different. But those trips taught me what matters before you start, and that’s what I want to share here.
How I learned
My first trips were with my father, Neil Cutts, buying for our family’s Rose Stereograph business. The company went to the Canton Fair in Guangzhou throughout my time with Rose Stereograph, from 1979 to 2018, as well as trade fairs in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and sometimes we made three overseas trips in a year.
The purpose of those trips was always the same: choosing products for the coming Australian tourist season. We weren’t buying things because they were interesting. We were buying things we believed would sell in tourist towns back home, months later, to visitors who wanted something to remember their trip by.
I did the China sourcing for Rose Stereograph myself: choosing the products, negotiating quantities and pricing, getting samples right, and organising freight through customs. Over the years I sourced more than 100 different souvenirs at those fairs, and every one was shipped home and distributed through the company to stores all around Australia.
I still hold the supplier relationships and contacts built up over those years. You can read more about my background and the Rose Stereograph story.
Start with the shop, not the factory
The most useful habit those trips gave me is to start at the end. Before you look for a supplier, picture the product on the shelf in an Australian store.
- Who will buy it? A family on holiday, an international visitor, a collector, a caravanner passing through?
- Where will it sell? A gift shop has different needs from a pharmacy counter or a visitor centre. Among my own stockists, pharmacies and newsagencies outnumber gift shops.
- What will it sell for? Work out a target retail price first. Everything else, from materials to packaging, has to fit inside it.
- When does it need to arrive? Tourism retail is seasonal, and the north and south of Australia peak at different times. There’s more in my piece on planning stock around the tourist seasons.
If you can answer those questions clearly, a sourcing conversation goes much better.
Finding and judging suppliers
The trade fairs were a big part of that work. Seeing products in person, handling them and talking face to face with suppliers tells you far more than a photo ever will.
In general, a good supplier relationship comes down to a few things:
- Clear communication. You need to be confident that both sides understand the specification in the same way.
- The right fit. A factory that suits one product may be wrong for another. Match the supplier to what you’re actually making.
- A relationship that lasts. The best results come from working with people over time, not from chasing the lowest quote every season.
Samples and the details
Samples are where a product idea becomes real, and where the small things show up: colour, finish, size, printing, packaging. For destination souvenirs, details like the spelling of a place name or how a local landmark is drawn matter a great deal to the people who live there and the visitors who buy them.
Allow time to review samples carefully and ask for changes before you commit to a production order. It is far easier to fix something at sample stage than after the stock has landed.
Quantities, timing and freight
Every supplier and every product has its own minimum order, production time and freight arrangements, so I won’t give you numbers here that wouldn’t apply to your project. What I’d say in general is:
- Ask early about minimum orders and how they change with colours, sizes or designs.
- Work backwards from when the stock needs to be on the shelf, not when you’d like it to leave the factory.
- Build in time for freight and getting stock out to regional stores.
How I can help
Through China sourcing, I can help Australian brands and businesses find suppliers or work with the ones they have, especially for souvenirs, giftware and tourism merchandise. That might be a supplier introduction, samples and feedback, or help thinking through quantities and timing. Not every project needs every step. There’s an overview on source and develop products.
When you get in touch, tell me what the product is and who will buy it, send reference photos or sketches (nothing confidential in a first message), and give me an idea of quantity, timing and your target retail price.
If you make or import a product
If you’re planning a product for Australian tourism retail, or want a better supplier for something you already sell, I’m happy to talk it through. And once it’s made, I can help get it in front of stores across Australia.
Talk to me about sourcing, see how representation works, or get in touch about your range.
If you run a store
If you’d love a souvenir with your town, attraction or region on it and can’t find one, let me know. I may be able to bring you something from the brands I represent, and if not, I can talk you through what having something made would involve.
Book a visit, ask for range advice or see the products I can bring you.