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QualityPre-shipment inspections: the 1% that saves the 100%
How a few hundred dollars spent at the factory prevents five-figure mistakes from landing in your FBA inventory.
Our articles are currently available in English only.
QualityHow a few hundred dollars spent at the factory prevents five-figure mistakes from landing in your FBA inventory.
A defect is cheapest to fix at the factory. Once the goods have shipped, correcting it means freight, storage and time. Once they're in FBA, it can mean returns, negative reviews, removal fees and a damaged listing. A pre-shipment inspection is how you catch problems while they're still cheap.
An independent inspector visits the factory once production is complete and most of the order is packed. They pull a random sample of finished goods and check them against your specification — then send you a report with photos before the goods leave.
The inspection happens before you pay the 70% balance. That's the whole point. If the report finds problems, the factory reworks the goods at its own cost while you still hold the payment. Pay first and inspect later, and you're negotiating with no leverage.
Inspect before you pay the balance. After that, your leverage is gone.
Inspectors don't check every unit — they check a statistically chosen sample, usually following an AQL standard. Defects are sorted into critical, major and minor, and the order passes or fails against limits you agree in advance. The key word is advance: settle what counts as a failure before production starts, not in an argument after the report arrives.
Write the inspection checklist before production starts, not the day before the inspector arrives.
A standard pre-shipment inspection in China typically costs a few hundred dollars per inspector-day. Set that against the value of the order — and against what it would cost to recover a bad batch once it's sitting in Amazon's warehouses. For most orders, it's the cheapest insurance you'll buy.
You can't inspect quality into a product, but you can refuse to ship a problem. A few hundred dollars at the right moment is what makes that choice possible.
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