3 tips to get the best MOQ from the supplier

Minimum Order Quantities, also known as MOQ, it may create fear for novice buyers or product buyers. The huge amount of MOQ can be frustrating, especially when the number is thousands, and some products require up to 5,000 or 10,000 MOQ. In fact, this order quantity is very normal, especially for the platform like Alibaba & Global Source ,most of the manufacturer was focused on the B2B ,the reason is very simple: the manufacturers look forward to doing business with companies with huge purchasing power.

Manufacturers want to supply the products in big quantity because it’s the way they make money and the way they can get cost-effective from just one product at the outset.

But the problem is your budget is limited, but you still want to complete transactions with these manufacturers and get competitively priced products. What should you do?

First of all, don’t take MOQ too seriously, it is just a guideline. The supplier certainly hopes that you can order 5,000 products, but everything was not  what it looks like ,you can negotiate.

You will be surprised to find that in most cases, you can easily reduce 30% of MOQ, and if  negotiate properly, sometimes you can reduce more. Of course, there are still some suppliers who are not willing to negotiate, but most of them are willing to . Remember, they want to do business with you – so stop scared when you find a high MOQ.

When negotiating the MOQ with supplier , you must have some realistic understanding of the numbers. If the budget allows, it is entirely possible to reduce the MOQ from 1000 to 250, but it is not easy to reduce it from 1000 to 25. Of course, you can try it, but don’t expect too much.

Here are some tips which you can use to negotiate the MOQ with supplier :

1. Pretending to be ” the first time for purchase “

Tell the supplier that this is a trial order which you want to start with small order quantity with different models to test the market response, For example, If the product MOQ was 1000 pieces, but you want to order 250 pieces at first. After that, wait a moment and look at the supplier’s reaction – they accept your order quantity is normal, because you need the product, they need an order. Sometimes they will raise the price of the product when they lower the MOQ, as long as the price has room for you to profit, it is acceptable.

2.“Mix and match” your order

In this case, if you order different products from one supplier, you don’t need to order a large quantity for each product,  only you need was meet the overall MOQ. In this way, you can spread risk and capital across a diverse product line. However, this method is only applicable to some products.

3.Spot Purchasing

Most factories in China only produce products when there has order demand, because they think it’s inefficient to keep a lot of prefabricated inventory. In fact, this is usually the main reason for the huge amount of MOQ, because suppliers need to produce a certain number of products to ensure cost-effectiveness.

Occasionally some products have been produced and ready for shipment, but the order has been cancelled or the stock is overstocked. In most cases, suppliers willing to sell these products to you at any MOQ value because they are rush  to get rid of the stock. Therefore, you can ask the supplier if there is a backlog of inventory or a cancelled order product which you can take over .

There is one last thing to note:

If you follow the above tips, at least you can reduce the MOQ to 30%  . But remember, you can never order a product with a lower  MOQ at a lowest purchase price. So, sometimes it’s not worth ordering with a  small MOQ , because when counted all the costs , you may have to pay a fairly high price.

Negotiate with the supplier and never to give up.