Quality and inspection
What a sample order includes.
A sample from the sample room made by the best person with unlimited time tells you what a factory can do at its best. Useful samples answer a different question: what will a hundred of these look like.
What to ask for.
Six things. Most buyers ask for the first and none of the rest.
- 01
The product itself
In the specification you intend to buy, not the closest thing they had.
- 02
More than one
Three or five of the same item. One sample tells you nothing about variation, which is the thing you actually need to know.
- 03
From production if possible
A piece from an actual run rather than from the sample room. Say explicitly which you received.
- 04
The packaging
The retail pack and the export carton. Packaging failures are a large share of arrival problems and nobody samples them.
- 05
The documents
A specimen certificate of analysis, a specimen invoice and packing list. You learn a great deal about a supplier from their paperwork.
- 06
A sealed retained sample
Held by them and by you, signed and dated. This is the reference every future delivery is measured against.
What to do with them.
Test what your market will test. If a heavy metal result is what decides entry, that is what the sample is for.
Measure what you specified. If moisture is in the contract, measure it on the sample rather than assuming.
Compare the pieces to each other, not only to your expectation. Variation between samples is the best early signal of what production will do.
Do the destructive test. Break one, wash one, burn one. Samples are cheap and the information is not available any other way.
The trap.
Approving a sample without recording what you approved. Six months later nobody can say what the reference was.
Accepting a sample that is better than the specification and then being disappointed by production that met it.
Paying for samples and not for shipping. Courier costs on samples from Indonesia surprise people and it is worth agreeing who pays.
Sampling a trader's stock rather than the factory's production, which tells you about the trader.
Questions buyers ask.
Should I pay for samples?
Usually yes, and it is normal and it gets you a better sample. Many suppliers credit sample costs against a first order, which is worth asking about.
How many samples do I need?
More than one, always. A single sample tells you what a factory can make once, and variation between several tells you what to expect from a run.
Is a sample-room piece useless?
Not useless, and it answers a different question from a production piece. It shows capability. What it does not show is what your hundredth unit will look like, which is what a contract is about.
Read next.
What a sample actually proves
The narrow question a sample answers, and why the sealed duplicate you never open is worth more than the one you evaluate.
Approving the first piece
One unit made to your specification, approved in writing before the run starts. The last cheap moment in the process.
Writing a specification suppliers can price
The document that decides what arrives. What belongs in it, what has to be measurable, and the words that cause disputes.
Why natural products vary
Wood, stone, shell and crops are not manufactured. How to specify variation rather than fight it.
Sourcing from Indonesia?
Tell us the product, the quantity and the destination. We come back with what it involves before anyone talks about money.