Four reasons: financial leverage, easy repairs, factory help, and factory machinery & equipment.
The Basics
Inspections should ideally be done at the primary manufacturing site where the products were produced. That said, Movley can do inspections anywhere whether that be a third-party warehouse or another facility.
In a general sense, do not pay the remaining order balance to your supplier until you're completely satisfied with the quality of the products and the inspection result.
Why do we recommend the factory?
- Most suppliers will not ship products without full payment of the goods. Doing inspections at the port or in a 3rd party facility means that you've already paid in full, and you've lost your financial leverage over your supplier. If something goes wrong, you can't hold the order payment until the issue is fixed and your supplier may cease to cooperate.
- After the inspection, opened products sometimes need to be repackaged. Proper packing may require certain equipment (i.e. a shrink wrap machine) which can be found in the manufacturing site. Other facilities may not have this equipment resulting in opened units being shipped.
- During the inspection, the inspector sometimes utilizes help from the factory (highly monitored by the inspector) to open units without damaging them, moving boxes & units around, and help with 2-person tests (i.e. measurements of large items). This saves total inspector time and generates the same results, saving you money at the end of the day.
- From time to time, the inspector may need to use factory machinery & equipment to properly conduct the inspection. For example, they may use accelerated wear & tear machines or need a boiler for hot water. This type of equipment is available at the factory, but not at a standard warehouse or port.
Beware of Port Inspections: Generally, only freight forwarders and inexperienced inspection companies will do inspections at the port. Freight forwarders make money when your products ship, and have a strong bias to pass the products once it's been booked on a vessel for transport. Similarly, inexperienced inspection companies do not inspect to proper quality control standards and processes.