When it comes to sourcing, most people half-ass it. That’s why they get burned on quality, refunds, or suppliers ghosting them. This is the full breakdown of how we handled product sourcing, supplier negotiations, and how to build real leverage so you don’t get fucked.
🔎 Finding the Product
- If you’re running a supplement or any type of DTC product you found on KaloData, Daily Virals, ShopHunter, etc. →
- Grab the stock images of it or find it on 1688, Taobao, AliExpress, Alibaba.
- Run it through your private agent(s) (always have multiple).
- Make sure they can:
- Do no MOQ (minimum order quantity).
- Handle custom packaging.
- Adjust or build formulas/designs.
- Scale production fast if you blow up.
💡 I’ll link my agent and her number here. She handled multiple products for us, no MOQ, custom packaging, worked formulas, the whole thing.
✅ Quality Control
- Never trust blindly. Suppliers will cut corners if you’re not checking.
- Steps we took:
- Get product photos before stock ships.
- Randomly QC samples (especially first 2–3 batches).
- Ask customers directly in support tickets how the product looks/feels/works.
- Build a feedback loop → customer support ↔ supplier ↔ us.
⚠️ Example: early on, our supplier literally shipped trash bag packaging of our supplement. If we hadn’t caught it, brand image would’ve been fried.
💰 Terms & Negotiation
- Your supplier should want you to win — make sure they’re invested in scaling with you.
- Key things to negotiate:
- Exclusive rights (factory can’t sell your product elsewhere).
- Better lead times as you scale.
- Progressive discounts on COGS as volumes increase.
- Free custom touches (logos, inserts, minor packaging tweaks).
⚖️ Credit Terms
- The gold standard at scale. Options:
- Supplier generates tracking numbers first, you pay later.
- Supplier ships first, you pay on net-30 or net-60.
- Important: never fuck your supplier. If you scam them, you burn the bridge and get blacklisted in the whole agent network.
Example: one guy scammed our supplier on 6 figures worth of stock. Now he’s blacklisted, burned his brand, and can’t get good terms anywhere. Dumbest short-term play ever.
🚫 Protecting Against Copycats
Once you scale, your product will pop up on ShopHunter, Kalodata, Brandsearch, etc. Factories & others in the space will try to resell your stuff. Protect yourself:
- Trademark your brand (US → USPTO).
- Secure domains in all major countries you plan to scale into.
- Register on Amazon so no one hijacks your listings.
- Chinese trademark (yes, file it there too) so factories can’t rip your product and sell domestically or export under your name.
If you want my Chinese Agent for setting up trademarks, send me a dm on Discord will connect you.
🤝 Communication & Relationship
- Be in constant contact with your supplier. Scaling fast only works if they’re aligned.
- What we did:
- Created a group chat → supplier agent + customer support rep.
- CS could message the agent directly for order changes, cancels, defects.
- Freed us from daily micro-management.
- Every couple weeks/months → renegotiate:
- “I’ve got other suppliers reaching out. What can you do to keep me around?”
- Forces them to improve deals, COGS, lead times, and perks.
⚔️ Lessons from Sourcing
- Don’t cheap out on quality forever. Use early dropship cash flow to develop a better version.
- Always check packaging and customer feedback before scaling heavy.
- Forecasting is critical. If your “1 month of stock” sells out in 3 days, you’re fucked. Lead times will crush you if not managed.
- Build the relationship. If they trust you, they’ll prioritize you when shit hits the fan.