The prospect of importing goods from China is both exciting and terrifying for many sellers. On one hand there is huge potential for making money from reselling wholesale goods purchased very cheaply. But on the other hand, language and cultural barriers present a number of difficulties to sellers. The main issue that everyone is worried about is payment: How do I pay? Will my money disappear?, and so on.
The difficulty lies in the fact that most Chinese wholesalers will only accept Western Union and wire transfer payments. These are not secure payment options so they must be treated with caution.
However, the main reason why these are the only payments accepted is that they are in fact the only payment methods available to the Chinese. Getting a credit card in China is an extremely difficult task with a lot of government regulations and strict criteria for getting a card.
So then, despite the risks involved with using Western Union and wire transfer, these are the methods you have to use if you want to import from China with most suppliers. To minimize this risk, our advice is to start with a fairly small shipment of goods so you are not standing to lose...