How To Find Suppliers In The Philippines

How To Find Suppliers In The Philippines: With the turmoil ravaging international relations, the Philippines will likely feel the economic sting of the crossfire. Add to that the previous crisis brought by the pandemic, no wonder some have ventured out of their day jobs to look for extra income.

Let’s say you’ve decided to launch a business and make money online. You already have a niche and a banner product in mind. But the question is, how and where do you get them? In this complete guide, you will learn how to find suppliers in the Philippines, and we’ll list down some verified suppliers to get you started.

How To Find Suppliers In The Philippines

1. Finding Suppliers In The Philippines

How to find suppliers in the Philippines is no longer a big secret. Many spaces and places are crawling with potential suppliers for your desired products, like Baclaran, Divisoria, Taytay, IKEA Pasay, and then the many bodegas located in Cavite, Mandaluyong, Caloocan, QC, etc.

Note: Depending on your niche, you may find the items you need to sell from these places. We’ll also mention a few verified suppliers to help you get started!

That said, finding suppliers in the Philippines is less about who or what but more about how the process works.

2. On-Site Visit

It might be a long shot amidst the pandemic, but one option to find suppliers in the Philippines is to scour places and directly search for one.

If you want that much-needed peace of mind, then meeting suppliers physically, seeing their shop in person, and having an overview of the products they sell is what you can do. Doing so will keep transactions direct and away from mediators that add extra to the supplies you intend to buy.

3. Social Media

If you really can’t help it, you may resort to social media when looking for suppliers. Facebook is a wonderful space for this purpose. Many FB groups and communities are dedicated to a specific niche or product, and you likely find suppliers within these spaces.

Word of advice, make sure to check every person you interact with first. One downside of using social media for big transactions is the possibility of scams and other disadvantages that you’ll rarely observe if you do personal site visits instead.

4. Locator Groups

Locator Groups are commonly found on social media who have curated and verified a list of suppliers within their group. Unfortunately, you have to pay a small fee upfront to access their list.

Most locator groups publicly declare the niches included within their list, and these are updated regularly, so you get access to the most recent supplies available to date. Other locator groups have people-for-hire to visit and supply inventory research for you.

5. Suppling Websites

This may be the most challenging among the options. There are many checks or intermediary steps to be sure if you’re indeed talking to a legitimate supplier. Naturally, outsourcing products outside the Philippines will come with shipping costs but are typically sold at very low prices. So if you find one that gives high-quality products with minimal taxes, you win.

Some places you can import products are Alibaba, Aliexpress, and Taobao.

Types Of Suppliers In The Philippines

Here are a few verified suppliers to help you get started:

Food Suppliers

Binondo Street and Great Food Solutions offer a wide selection of meat products, ready-to-eat snacks, and dry goods like flour and sugar. They offer flexible pricing too, so feel free to contact them.

Candle Suppliers

Want to delve into the candle-making industry? Raw Essential is an excellent place to get the tools you’ll need to make candle products. From wicks to molds to fragrances, they got it all.

Clothes Wholesale Supplier

Clothes and fabrics are one of the biggest industries in the country. And your niche likely falls in this category too. You may check this link to get the best wholesale deals from Alibaba.

You may also visit the Facebook page of Viajero Wholesale or inspect the website of Kily Philippines to see their latest supplies.

5. Things To Do After Finding A Supplier

We’ve answered how to find suppliers in the Philippines. But what happens next?

Here are three immediate steps to take once you land on a supplier. These processes will determine if you must close the deal with them or find another one.

Test The Supplier’s Legitimacy

Don’t get ahead of yourself and order 10,000 pieces without testing if the supplier is legitimate or not. After all, some imported suppliers are more than willing to provide a set of products or testers first beforehand.

But even if you’re transacting locally, what you can do is buy a few items first to verify their legitimacy. Then, you may test them as much as you want and negotiate the prices before striking a deal.

Find More Than One Supplier

It’s good that you have one trusted supplier. But what if you have three more?

Other suppliers will come in handy if something happens with the first one, say, the factory got burned down or the supplier’s untimely demise. If you had other suppliers who can clutch the follow-through, these wouldn’t be problems.

Choose COD Or COP

One way is to negotiate your way to have a cash-on-delivery or cash-on pickup system instead of paying online. This way, you can check the items beforehand and request a refund when needed.

It doesn’t mean that a supplier is a sham if they don’t agree. But if you manage to get them on board, you’ll have more peace of mind.

Questions To Ask Before Finding A Supplier Philippines

The process of how to find suppliers in the Philippines is quite tedious. Therefore, we recommend you track down a supplier if and only if you’re a hundred percent certain you’ll need one. Otherwise, you might have a stock of idle stocks lying somewhere in your garage.

Here are three questions you may consider asking yourself before starting your supplier search quest:

Is This A Winning Product?

How sure are you that you can sell the product as quickly as possible? A winning product is something that sells like hotcakes or a product that is very in-demand to your target audience.

One way is to do market research first to determine the high demand for your target product. And unless you’re 100% sure that you can sell out your stock in a short period, think twice about getting a supplier.

Do I Need A Supplier Right Now?

Instead of keeping stocks, perhaps you can only ask for supplies when there are existing orders or demand for the product? This strategy is called dropshipping — a retail fulfillment method where the seller doesn’t keep inventory but purchases directly from a third-party supplier who ships the products directly to the buyers.

Many businesses succeeded with this tactic, and maybe you will too. But since you don’t have physical products at your disposal, you have limited control and information regarding the product’s availability, state, or post-shipment quality.

Do I Have Enough Funds?

Buying stocks of a product requires a hefty amount of cash, so it’s important that you have sufficient funds you can shell out for this purpose.

Whether you have established enough business capital or choose to use a part of your savings, we recommend that you make sure you have an emergency fund that’s enough to cover 6 months (or more) worth of your expenses.

If your answer to all three questions is a resounding YES, then keep reading.

The process of finding suppliers in the Philippines is truly a hassle and not for the faint of heart. However, with the right amount of grit, research, and funds, you can find the supplier you need and get your entrepreneurial dreams off the ground.

Who Are Suppliers?

After answering the age-old question “how to find suppliers in the Philippines?” we must understand what suppliers are.

Your suppliers are your entrepreneurial partners. They might not be a part of your marketing scheme, but they’re certainly the back-end that keeps your business at its feet.

Essentially, your supplier may make or break your business. An excellent supplier might set you up for success, while a bad one can jeopardize your venture before it even takes off. Needless to say, finding the right one is critical — and hard.

But don’t let your supplier search derail your e-commerce dreams!

A supplier is a person or business that provides a product or service to another entity. For example, they provide high-quality products for distributors or retailers for resale. And suppliers may come in one of three forms:

Ideally, you want to find the source (manufacturer or supplier) of the products themselves to get the best prices.

How To Find Suppliers In The Philippines