It’s easy to search the suppliers by google searching.
Usually, the official website of the suppliers will have the following keywords:
ps: product keywords are replaced with "stainless steel"
- "stainless steel suppliers in ..."
- "stainless steel factory in ..."
- "stainless steel manufacturers in ..."
- "bulk stainless steel in ..."
- "stainless steel wholesalers in ..."
Google maps is also an excellent tool to find suppliers. Also, we can find the suppliers’ addresses and strengths by using the “street view” function.
The suppliers usually show lots of their product photos on their websites. We can search these photos by keywords or by uploading images.
Sometimes some local search engines (such as baidu.com in China, and yandex.com in Russia.) do even better than Google.
For example, we can easily find many good Chinese stainless steel supplier by searching “不锈钢厂家” on baidu.com.
There're two ways to find & contact the suppliers:
- Searching on the platform. - You can find the suppliers list according to search the keywords such as "stainless steel".
- Submit a Purchasing Request (RFQ). After the request is done, you can continue to receive information from suppliers in the next few days.
I prefer to search directly cause it's more proactive and efficient. Now let's check it.
After searching the keyword “stainless steel” on alibaba.com, we’ll get a product list page ( about 45 products).
It's necessary to ignore the advertising product to find good suppliers. The advertising product usually is with a label on the right like this:
There're many icons on each product. Some icons can help us find good suppliers.
Here's what these tags mean:🛆 No.1 - Product Label: This is a useless label cause it can be edited by suppliers.
🛆 No.2 - Customs Data Label: Useless. Sellers wouldn’t have this label if they don’t like to display their data.
▲ No.3 - Company Name Label: Useful. We can find supplier's websites by clicking this link — on the “contacts” page. (
click to see how to find)
▲ No.4 - Member Age: Useful. It’s reasonless to purchase from ONLY 1-years-member suppliers.
🛆 No.5 - Verified Label: Useless. It’s a paid service on alibaba.com. The certification company just takes some photos of vendors’ offices & business licenses.
▲ No.6 - Trade Assurance: Useful. Make sure the “Supplier’s Trade Assurance Limit” (you’ll find it when you put the mouse on the little yellow crown icon) is enough to secure our payment.
🛆 No.7 - Response Rate: Useless. Most of the response rate is more than 95%. This is just an indicator to evaluate suppliers.
▲ No.8 - Sales on alibaba.com: Useful. This label shows vendors’ sales on alibaba.com.
🛆 No.9 - Supplier Service Stars: Useless. It’s proportional to the cost of the suppliers.
🛆 No.10 - Feedback: Useless already. For better rank on alibaba.com, there’re more and more suppliers begin to pay for fake feedback.
