Alibaba is one recommended place to wholesale sportswear or active wear, but you may have meet problems when using this Chinese B2B market place as a foreigner. This post is your remedy, we write the step by step guide on how you can wholesale sportswear from Alibaba.com, help you to pick up a reliable and cheap manufacturer or factory.
A complete guide on wholesale sportswear from Alibaba
1. Input the right keywords to search out the corresponding sportswear manufacturers
Which type of sportswear do you want to wholesale, cycling clothing, running apparel, yoga wear, or anything else? Using the proper keywords in the searching box, so you can find a list of the right sportswear manufacturers. A few examples can be below:
•sportswear
•running shirts
•cycling jerseys
•yoga leggings
•team sports
•activewear sets
Don’t go too specific, you won’t find matching suppliers.
2. Filter suppliers according to your requirement
Click the search button, you will see a list of sportswear wholesale suppliers. I just used the keyword “sportswear” and got 188397 options to choose from. This is a too wide range, we have to narrow it.
How? The left column on Alibaba.com gives us many options for further filtering sportswear factories.
As an Alibaba new hand, I suggest you focus on ‘Supplier Types’ and ‘Management Certifications’, which enables you to filter suppliers based on the following:
•Trade Assurance
•Verified Supplier
•ISO 9001
•BSCI
•ISO 14001
•SA 8000
•IS 13485
What is Alibaba Trade Assurance: Trade Assurance is a free service offered by Alibaba.com that’s designed to help create trust between buyers and suppliers. Trade Assurance covers you in the event of shipping or quality-related disputes. You can get a refund if the shipment is delayed, beyond the specified shipping date or the sports clothing are not compliant with the provided quality requirements.
What is Alibaba Verified Supplier: To qualify as an Alibaba Verified Supplier, the supplier’s company profile, production capabilities, products, and process controls have to be inspected, assessed, and verified by independent third-party institutions to assure reputable and consistent expertise on Alibaba.com.
So tick the Trade Assurance and Verified Supplier options, we can avoid being scammed by the defective sportswear suppliers on Alibaba. This will give us more trust when choosing from the sportswear manufacturers to wholesale a batch of clothing.
3. Prepare a list of suppliers to wholesale your wanted sportswear style
Now you can visit the product pages one by one and select the sportswear styles you like, you can choose as many as you want, but during the browsing, pay attention to the customer feedback and the score of the sportswear wholesale supplier. The more feedback means more people purchase it, the higher score means the better the supplier is.
4. Review the sportswear wholesale distributors’ pages
Now it’s time to switch from product search to supplier search. After all, we are here to find qualified sportswear manufacturers, not just stylish sportswear. Open the supplier pages, and make an assessment based on the information we find on their company page.
Check the following list:
•Are they listed as a trading company or manufacturer?
•Are they specialized in the sportswear industry?
•Do they offer customization, OEM, and ODM services?
•Do they provide factory images?
•Do they have uploaded certifications?
•Do they have uploaded factory audit reports?
5. Review the sports clothing pages carefully to see every detail
Use the above checklist, I think you can exclude many sportswear wholesale suppliers in Alibaba.com, then you can review the remaining suppliers’ product pages and narrow your choice again.
Now check them:
•Are they having high definition photos on the pages?
•Are they displaying model wear photos on the pages?
•Do they indicate clothing materials clearly on the pages?
•Do they provide a size chart on the pages?
6. Select suppliers, submit or request quotations
At this stage, you should have a shortlist of at least 10 suppliers. You can get in touch with these sportswear wholesale suppliers, either by clicking on the ‘Contact Supplier’ button or ‘Chat Now’. To increase your quotation response rate, send inquiries as to the list.
•a. Introduce yourself and your company
•b. Tell them your order quantity and your customization need if you have
•c. Clarify that your intention is to get a quote, order samples, and then place your first test order.
7. Order sportswear samples from 3+ suppliers
Despite the fact that you’ve already invested significant time in vetting suppliers and requesting quotations, the real test remains. Making sports clothing samples. According to the quality and price, choose the best wholesale sportswear supplier in Alibaba.
8. Place your order with Alibaba Trade Assurance
Nothing special, just order with the Alibaba guidance.
9. Arrange shipment for your wholesale order
You essentially have 2 options:
•a. Let the supplier book the shipment
•b. Book a shipment via sourcing agent
10. Get your sportswear and review the supplier on Alibaba.com
It’s really not easy for overseas sportswear startups or online retailers to wholesale sportswear from Alibaba, the whole process will be a long long time and you may get into trouble at any time. Because you need to deal with a lot of Chinese sportswear wholesale suppliers and try to pick up a reliable one.
So I will suggest you go for a sportswear manufacturer directly to wholesale the clothing. That is Berunwear.com.
Berunwear is a sportswear factory, a manufacturer, and a wholesale supplier. The company is specialized in sportswear customization, fabrics sourcing, activewear manufacturing, private label designing, and overseas shipping. It’s your one-station-shop to get unique, stylish, comfortable, and cheap sportswear in bulk.
Working with Berunwear.com, you only need to offer a design concept or a picture, then check the quality of samples they send to you, then wait for the wholesale order, that’s all, they will handle all of the other things for you, from choosing suitable fabrics and materials suppliers, producing samples and bulk sportswear, inspecting each item quality to shipping orders out by a reliable carrier. Choose Berunwear as your sportswear supplier, you will have no worry!
Plus, Berunwear is the original sportswear manufacturer with over 15 years’ history, it can support the lowest minimum order quantity=30 pieces, and have the fastest turnaround=3 to 5 days. Its factory has multiple scale production lines, fits for small and large orders. Its staff is experienced and efficient, its machinery is using the latest technology. Sublimation Dye, 3D Digital printing, and all types of sports fabrics are available in the Berunwear factory.
All in all, want to wholesale sportswear at a cheap price with an easy way? Just order from Berunwear.com.