was higher than I sell that product for at retail,” she says. Then Wees made a visit. Face-to-face discussions revealed that many Mexican suppliers thought Americans wanted to buy their existing products at wholesale rates. Once Wees explained that she was a brand owner, developing her own products and looking for a contract manufacturing relationship, she received more palatable quotes. Consider the total cost. The cost per unit to produce an item in Mexico is generally higher than in China. “However, once you take into consideration that you’re not paying tariffs, in many cases you will realize a savings,” Wees says. Be exible. When approaching a potential supplier, don’t get hung up on the way you operate in China. “You have to manage your expectations and realize that it’s like a rst date with a person from a different culture whom you’ve never met,” McGaffey says. Don’t delay. While Mexico has enough production capacity today, that could change. “Some factories are already saying they can’t take any new business because they’re inundated with orders,” says Mahdi. Now is the time to start making connections. “Make the decision to at least start testing manufacturers in Latin America and start establishing relationships, even if at a small scale, keeping somebody in your pocket as a backup supplier,” he advises. The same goes for other parts of the world. “If you are able to get a quote from Thailand speci cally, and you’re working with someone you trust, take it very seriously,” Brigham says. “And think about what it would mean in the long term to have a diverse supply chain for this speci c product, even if it costs a little more up front.” If, for your purposes, you think of China as a sinking Titanic, and countries such as Vietnam and India as potential lifeboats, make sure to secure your place while capacity remains. “If it’s Southeast Asia you want to go to, it’s lling up fast,” Brigham says. n
NEW TOOLS FOR SOURCING FROM LATIN AMERICA Raine Mahdi founded the Zipfox online sourcing marketplace to give buyers an alternative to platforms such as China-based Alibaba and Global Sources. Those platforms pose risks, Mahdi says, because they sign on as many suppliers as possible. That leaves buyers to search through a field of listings with no clue about which vendors oer good value. “If you’re looking for T-shirts or phone cases, do you need 500 options?” Mahdi asks. “Or would you rather have 25 high-quality options, maybe with dierent sizes and dierent minimum order quantities?” Zipfox launched in 2022 as a place to find Mexican suppliers, which Mahdi says his company vets carefully before letting them join the platform. Eventually, Zipfox aims to become a global marketplace, with plans to expand into Central and South America in early 2023. “We’ve put feelers out in Egypt, South Africa, and India, just to test the markets,” he adds. In the long run, Zipfox will probably even add Chinese suppliers. “But now is not the time,” Mahdi says. For buyers—especially e-commerce brand owners—who want to make in- person contacts in Mexico and beyond, the EvoLatam Expo oers a chance to check out suppliers in many dierent categories. “Most of us don’t just sell things made of wood, or just household goods,” says Amy Wees, an online merchant, e-commerce consultant, and co- founder of EvoLatam. “We’re used to going to trade shows like the Canton Fair in China, ASD in Las Vegas, or Global Sources in Hong Kong.” When Wees and her business partner started to lead sourcing trips to Mexico, they found trade shows for single categories, such as ceramics. “But there was nothing that would help an e-commerce brand owner source from multiple categories at once,” she says. They founded EvoLatam to fill that need. “If we were going to evolve e-commerce into sourcing in Latin America, this was an absolute requirement,” Wees says.
Zipfox locates and vets suppliers in Mexico and around the world. The platform handles the entire sourcing process, from product search to shipping.
44 Inbound Logistics • March 2023
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