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Importing from China. Suomen Kerta Oy Noora Laine 22.2.2011. Suomen Kerta Oy. Established in 1987 Has three different production units:
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Importingfrom China Suomen Kerta Oy Noora Laine 22.2.2011
Suomen Kerta Oy • Established in 1987 • Has three different production units: • Imatra (Paper plates and cups, biodegradable plates and cups, plastic cups and cutlery, fast food packaging, cling films and foil, aluminium trays, coffee filters and customer tailored products ) • Kotka (napkins, tablecloths and tablerunners) • Riihimäki (candles) • Sales office located in Espoo
China importing • At the moment we are importing plastic products and candles. Business started with Chinese companies around six years ago. • Newest product category is wooden cutlery. • Supplier for wooden cutlery is new and the project is almost finished. At the moment, we are waiting for the first container to arrive. • Business directly with producers, no agents or wholesalers.
Challenges • Long delivery times -> creates great challenges for estimating orders. • Freight changes • Advance payment • More competition: minimum order quantities decreased-> more importers • Tariffs -> one need to be aware of Finnish and EU laws
Spontaneous helpers • We started by importing plastic bags. First delivery troublesome: • Mixed pallets caused a lot of extra work for our warehouse. • Another incident was with pizza boxes. Our supplier used new way of packing, thinking it would be helpful: • two full containers of pizza packages needed to be repacked.
Problems • Once we’ve used agent as intermediary. Product wasn’t what is was suppose to be! • Private label bags withdrawn from the market because of abnormal odor on the bags • Silver cutlery - The Finnish Custom laboratories made a sample analysis test for silver cutlery. Result was rejected because the overall migration was over the EU-plastic directive. • This case is still on the table
Present and future • All in all Chinese companies are reliable partners. Co-operation is working very well with our long term suppliers. • Surely one needs to be aware of the cultural differences: to our knowledge it’s good to meet Chinese people face to face. • Lots of opportunities: perhaps new products in the future for us as well?