November 29, 2025
Blog
If you spent more than five minutes on TikTok this summer, you probably saw the infamous bladeless shaver. It promised a smooth shave and delivered something closer to a loud vibrating egg that could not cut butter. Thousands of small e-commerce brands jumped on it overnight, convinced they had found their golden SKU.
What followed was not a product failure. It was a sourcing failure.
What Actually Happened Behind the Trend
Most brands sourced from the cheapest factory they could find on Alibaba. Quality control was skipped entirely. Prices were pushed so low that suppliers quietly downgraded components across the board. Motors, casing, and internal coils were swapped for cheaper alternatives.
When customers complained that the shaver did not shave anything at all, brands acted surprised. Store ratings collapsed. Refunds followed. The product did exactly what the sourcing process allowed it to do.
Meanwhile, the few brands that took time to specify motor strength, casing tolerance, and component quality actually made money. The difference was not luck. It was structure.
The Second Wave of Chaos – Shipping the Wrong Way
Then came logistics. Many SMEs shipped battery-powered electronics through 9610 because it was faster. Customs disagreed.
Shipments were held across EU ports. Capital was frozen for weeks. Support inboxes filled with unread emails from warehouses offering no real answers. What was meant to be speed turned into delay, not because of China, but because the export mode was wrong for the product category.
Why This Was Never About China
None of these collapses were caused by Chinese manufacturing. They were caused by sourcing without discipline.
If you do not write clear product specifications, the factory will guess, and it will guess cheap. If your only negotiation tactic is asking for a discount, you will receive the discounted version of everything, including materials, labour, and performance. If you ship through the wrong export model, customs will eventually correct you, slowly and expensively.
Why SMEs Actually Fail
SMEs do not fail because their products are bad. They fail because they run their supply chain like a group chat.
Clear specifications matter. Verified suppliers matter. Small-batch quality control matters. Choosing the correct export model matters. Transparent quotations matter.
That is the entire playbook.
Follow it, and sourcing from China becomes predictable. Ignore it, and your product might still go viral, just not for the reasons you hoped.