Running an electronics manufacturing & sales business outside of China. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: xaxaxa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2018, 04:21:27 am
content: I'm a small 1-person company developing, manufacturing, and selling simple test equipment, with products being sold online. Currently manufacturing and fulfillment are done in China, and I have to be physically present (somebody has to do final testing, assembly, and shipping). I'm not a Chinese citizen and have no status in the country, so I'm there on a visitor visa only.The main obstacles to me running the entire operation from my home country (Canada) are:(1) Logistics (shipping out packages); Canada Post is not able to ship international packages with tracking (technically they can, but the cost is like $100 for a tiny package); DHL, UPS, Fedex etc are too expensive at small volumes, and I don't think customers will appreciate paying $50 shipping on a $250 product. ePacket shipping from China costs far less (I'm currently only charging $8 on a product weighing 250g) and includes full tracking.(1a) If manufacturing is still in China, then goods will be double taxed (once entering Canada and once in the final destination country)(2) R&D logistics (ordering PCB/PCBA prototypes and parts); I rely heavily on the JLCPCB assembly service for R&D (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufacture/jlc-pcb-prototype-assembly-incredibly-cheap/), but it is currently still not offered outside of China. International shipping is also far slower than the domestic express shipping inside China, which on average takes 3 days to deliver from Shenzhen to Nanjing and costs between $1-$2. R&D efficiency would take a big hit if I can't get prototypes and parts quickly. Once you have gotten used to the convenience of taobao you never want to go back to waiting a month for stuff from aliexpress. (a lot of the parts I need are simply not available from western distributors)(2) can be possibly worked around if my budgets are bigger (DHL shipping for prototypes and maybe in-house assembly), but (1) and especially (1a) are showstoppers.Has anyone else here ran a similar kind of business from a developed country and can chime in as to how it can be done?

author: xaxaxa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2018, 04:51:35 am
content: How do you partially stuff a board and finish it later? If you paste the entire board then you can't reflow it until all the parts are placed, but if you partially paste and reflow the board how do you paste the remaining pads later?As for parts import tax I think most of the parts I'm using are from China or smuggled anyway, since the quotes I'm getting from my assembler (elecrow) are lower or equal to the pricing from western distributors pre-tax...

author: xaxaxa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2018, 04:55:50 am
content: Or do you mean moving most passives to the bottom side of the board and chips to the top side? I think that would actually work, but I looked around and checked out a few western assemblers and the pricing I'm getting (for just an assembly pass) is larger than the current total landed cost of the entire, assembled boards including parts, so I'd have to set up my own assembly line...

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2018, 04:42:35 pm
content: Quote from: xaxaxa on October 06, 2018, 04:55:50 amPerhaps you should look closer at other cheap assemblers in Canada. Last time I asked a quote from China it was more expensive compared to the local assembler I'm using for most of the boards.

author: xaxaxa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2018, 06:00:40 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 06, 2018, 04:42:35 pmJust curious, what kind of price point would you consider to be typical? The last assembly job with elecrow worked out to be about $15/board for 50pcs of 10x10 pcb with 350 parts, 60 bom lines, 1200 smt pads, and double sided assembly. This is considered expensive in China with the average quote I got being $4/board for that same board, but those vendors don't do component sourcing. PCB assembly currently isn't a very big expense on this product, but I'd say if it exceeds $20/board then it becomes a problem.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2018, 06:14:44 pm
content: Quote from: xaxaxa on October 06, 2018, 06:00:40 pmWithout knowing component cost that is hard to say. IIRC I asked an outfit similar to Elecrow to assemble a much simpler board but I got quoted a higher price. If I where you I'd try to put your ear to the ground and ask some Canadians working in the electronics business on which company is really cheap when it comes to board assembly. With such a low price your board doesn't seem to contain many high cost components and a P&P machine costs the same for a Chinese and Canadian manufacturer. All the extra hassle dealing with Chinese also takes away time which could be spend on making money instead of losing it.