The Business Trip to Ningbo
Soon after my friend and I went to visit two factory branches here in Shanghai,
out of anxiety and eagerness we decided to go to Ningbo to check out the feasibility of exporting components. Judged from the information off the Internet and their quotation, our target factory seemed to be our last straw. If it didn’t work out, we would possibly have to bail from the business swiftly.
I talked to George, the contact from the factory, on the train, and was told roughly the route to their factory. According to him, we would just have to take taxi from Ningbo to Ninghai County, then Xidian Town, and finally to the village their factory was at. But we had no intention to go for that. Taxi might spare us
from the heat once and for all, and from the trouble transferring transportation, but we would never know how exactly to get there. Besides, hacking a taxi was unfeasibly pricy. We didn’t want to surpass our budget for this business trip
unnecessarily.
So it turned out, to the county we took one-hour-and-a-half coach, then to the town and the village we hailed a taxi with a reasonable price. The journey took us around five hours, without including walking in the sweltering sun and hustling about in the crowd at the stations. My friend said that this journey had got to be worthwhile; otherwise he would get extremely disappointed. I felt the same.
Up thus far, the quotation they offered us from those components was the lowest
. And judged from the low running cost of the factory comparing to that of others, the trip would probably decide if we were to make the whole component thing work or not.
Anyway, George was waiting for us when we stepped into his office. It was surprising to see that he had a good handle in English. Things seemed to start to turn
favourably to us. We showed him the specification of our product, both in English and Chinese, and started to inquire about details that were hard to discuss over E-mail. He seemed to know fully what he was doing and saying, which is excellent for us.
We got confirmed soon that they could make the component for us readily, and gave us even a more favourable quotation. Furthermore, later on he led us around the workshop, where our component would be made, and the lab, where it would be tested and analyzed. From beginning to end, he spoke perfect English, which freed
me from the trouble of interpretation, and us from any potential misunderstanding. All went on and ended excellently.
The factory tour trip ended around four o’clock. By that time, we had got a component sample with superb quality with us, got confirmed further the feasibility
and possibility of making a deal with the factory, got to know the quotation from England side was too dated to be valid, and had the impression that a long-term relationship with this factory was not impossible. We badly need our target factory to know what they are doing, and George showed us the full positive evidence.
Since it was still early, we decided to come back to Shanghai, instead of staying there overnight according to our original plan. The journey back was an ordeal
and didn’t turn any less uncomfortable, despite we chose soft seat for the train. The compartment in the train was noisy as usual. The air in it was still and
stuffy. On the seats beside us were four card-players. They talked loud fully to their satisfaction.
And the guy opposite us was talking, unbelievable with a bottle of spirit at hand, all the way. He freed his stinky feet from his leather sandals, which sufficed the needs of his feet but aggravated the hardship of everyone else. But in general, though the whole situation is still a buried shovel—one party is willing
to offer their precise quotation after they get the order, and the other has to
know the quotation before they place their order, for us the trip was definitely a nice break through.
