How to Import shoe accessories from China:
In this article, we will tell you how to import Apparel Accessories from China, we will pick "Shoe Accessories" as an example to elaborate. If you are importing accessories, parts and semi-finished products for fashion shoes, clothes, bags, belts, and other fashion products from China, you cannot miss this guide.
Chapter 1: Why Import Accessories from China?
First, let's look at a set of data, according to Trade Data Visualization, the number of Footwear exported in 2017 is as follows:
China has the world’s largest market share in the textile and apparel industry.
Billions of pairs of shoes and millions of tons of accessories leave China every year and export to many countries.
The reasons for importing shoe accessories from China are pretty obvious.
* Raw materials in China are readily available and are affordable, with a complete production chain in the Footwear, Apparel industry, thus there are full plenty of accessories manufactures.
* Chinese labor is relatively cheap
*Chinese laws on exportation are not as strict as that of many other countries.
Therefore, those of you who are looking to gain profit by importing accessories, the Chinese accessories market is one that you shouldn’t miss.
Chapter 2: How many kinds of accessories used in shoes?
1) Zipper
The zipper is a well-known and popular clothing accessory or decorative accessory, with various materials and colors to create many possibilities for design, it plays an important role.
You may know the famous YKK zipper. Do you know that China is the world's largest zipper producer and exporter?
From China, you can wholesale zippers of the following materials, with a different type (Open-ended zipper, closed-end zipper, movable open-end zipper), different color and size, and different zipper sliders.
I will list some special and fashion types of zippers for each material:
Nylon zipper: Invisible zipper, waterproof zipper
Plastic zipper: Transparent zipper, Metallic color of the plastic zipper, night luminous plastic zipper, Rhinestone diamond zipper
Metal zipper: Aluminum tooth zipper, copper tooth zipper, Black Nickel Teeth zipper
Pro Tips: Zippers, especially shoe zippers, are more sophisticated than clothes and luggage zippers, you need to pay more attention to zipper raw material and technology.
For Clothes: the zipper teeth are sparse, mainly focus on the smoothness of clothes zippers.
For Shoes: in addition to the smoothness, the shoe zipper is also necessary to know strength, durability, and exercise stress.
2) Shoelaces
In the pursuit of personality and fashion, shoelaces have not only been regarded as a functional product, but it is also a fashion accessory for matching different styles of shoes.
Shoelaces (also known as shoestrings) are widely used in all kinds of shoes, it also has a shoelace bracelet in the market.
"Change the new laces and make your shoes look new." Nowadays, shoelaces have also become a separate fashion accessory for sale.
By material, shoelace styles can be divided into polyester shoelaces, cotton shoelaces, leather shoelaces, Elastic shoelaces, Rubber shoelaces.
There is also some niche shoelace: such as satin silk ribbon Shoelaces, velvet surface shoelaces, LED shoelaces, metallic thread shoelaces, rainbow shoelaces…
Now, there are two kinds of shoelaces that are very fashion and Hot-selling.
Tieless shoelaces, no tie shoelaces (including Elastic no tie Shoelaces and Rubber no tie shoelaces).
The illuminating shoelaces, including LED shoelace and Reflective shoelaces.
Pro tips:
1, Shoelace length can be customized according to your requirement.
2, Shoelace tip always has different options.
3) Shoe Eyelets
Eyelet is much simpler than other accessories.
Generally used for wearing laces, some also used for decoration, it is widely used in shoes, bags, belts, caps, clothes.
The most common eyelets on the market are as follows:
Metal/Plastic eyelets for shoes, metal material include copper, alloy, iron, etc.
Pro Tips:
1, When purchasing eyelets from China, keep in mind that the manufacturers need to deliver the matching bottom cap together.
2, For some uncommon styles, in order to save your production time, please ask your manufacturer to provide matching mold.
4) Rivets and studs
I will always remember the following high heel shoes when I mention about rivets, without pop rivets, it is just one pair of normal shoes.
Rivets and studs are more widely used than eyelets.
Metal rivets include: copper rivets (brass rivets), iron rivets, stainless steel rivets
With different shapes, such as spike, round, triangle, heart, square, pentagram
with various decorations, such as rhinestone, pearls, glass, resin, etc.
Designers get design inspiration from all things and then attach these inspirations to the carrier, which show their unique vision to the world. The carrier includes not only zippers, fabrics, rivets but also buckles and all kinds of other decoration, which will become the sources of inspiration.
5) Shoe ornaments, shoe buckles, all kinds of shoe decorations
Designers get design inspiration from all things and then attach these inspirations to the carrier, which show their unique vision to the world. The carrier includes not only zippers, fabrics, rivets but also buckles and all kinds of other decoration, which will become the sources of inspiration.
In this small chapter, we will introduce in detail other various shoe accessories
Shoe ornaments:
It does not have a unified name, some importers also named as shoe metal, shoe trim, shoe clips, shoe decoration, shoe accessories.
In order to no confused with all the shoe accessories, I will show you related pictures:
Feature: by welding, hand-make, fashion, bling-bling
Bling-bling: sounds like my company, right? Actually, my company name comes from this word, I have invested one metal manufacture at 2015, this Manufacture mainly produced fashion metal accessories, China’s biggest shoes manufacture: Huajian is one of their customers, and also making fashion accessories for many famous brands.
Can apply with different color, the shape of Gemstone like Swarovski rhinestones, Czech stone, China stone,
Resin (like turquoise), Acrylic or Pearl
Note: Shoe ornaments normally with three kinds of finish,
with tube or ring, sew-on Shoe ornaments,
with clips, known as Shoe clips or clip-on shoe ornaments
with claw
Shoe Flowers: Fabric or charming beads flower, handmade style
Shoe Chains or crystal Chains (shoe chain with stone): shoe dangling
Shoe buckles: if one manufacturer can make shoe buckle, it can definitely wholesale belt buckles
Metal buckle, Plastic buckle
Metal plate, metal logo: widely used in all kinds of apparel, such as shoes, clothes, bags, belts, luggage….
For the brand manufacturer, it is the image of a brand.
Hotfix rhinestone, sew-on rhinestone
Widely used in clothes like a wedding dress, shoes like the Wedding High heels shoes and party wear shoes, bags…
Rhinestone Mesh, Rhinestone Sheet
Hotfix with adhesive rhinestone crystal mesh sheet with fashion components, chains, resin, natural stones, the mesh can be cut in various shape to decorate the shoe uppers, garments.
Shoe charms: famous croc charms on the shoes, Disney charms, you can customize your own design.
Pro tips:
Hardware (include all the metal parts such as eyelets, rivets, metal plate, shoe chain): As an external decoration for shoes, handbags, etc., adds the crowning touch for products. Especially for brand manufacturers, you must pay attention to the finish, which can't be fade.
Chapter 3: How to customize your shoe Accessories?
When I was shopping at Guangzhou wholesale markets with my customers, we are shocked with the markets, you can’t imagine how many kinds of accessories here, we would like to say: China's accessories wholesale market has all the accessories which you desire.
How Chinese Accessories Suppliers Design their Products?
Soon I know that: Many sellers pay close attention to fashion trends. Some factories have their own designers, they take some top international fashion brand’s new styles as a reference, then add their own idea and revise, with same or different materials, to create a new own style then sell on the markets.
So, you just need to send the pictures and related requirement or samples which you like, most factories can make your satisfied products.
For the metal part, various finish (different plating color) and technology support.
Regarding stone, you can choose acrylics, resin, glass, crystals, pearls, always with different color swatch.
Chapter 4: How to Wholesale Accessories in China?
China's Accessories manufacturers are mainly located in the southeast coastal areas, such like Guangdong Province, Jiangsu Province, Fujian Province, and Zhejiang Province, and are closely linked with the textile, shoes and garment industry cluster.
You can through the following way to find them:
1) Search from the Internet, like Alibaba or other B2B platforms
If you have any question about Alibaba sourcing, please visit my blog: How To Find Good Suppliers In Alibaba?[Complete Guide]
Unfortunately to tell you that: when you search these kinds of accessories separate on Alibaba or other B2B platforms, many suppliers are trading company.
There are mainly three reasons:
a) Most of these accessories manufacturers are small scale enterprise with employee less than 30 people, they don't have any staff who knows English(It’s very common in China, most staffs are doing work related to products and production, and dealing with domestic trading companies.) and these manufacturers didn’t publish their Information on English Website. Like my invested manufacturer, they even never publish their information on the internet.
All foreign importers will only source suppliers on B2B platforms such as Alibaba or searching on Google in English, so there is no way for foreign importers to find them.
a) The domestic is a big cake scale; they focused more on the Chinese market.
b) Compared with the trading company, theses accessories factories have less experience at Online Marketing, that’s why even though some factories are Alibaba members and have published products there, you are still difficult to find them.
Except for work with a trading company, you can also cooperate with a professional Sourcing company.
Bling sourcing company, only focus on the fashion products and accessories, not only have their own invested metal accessories manufacture, but also have good relationships with many fashion accessories manufactures.
Bling sourcing company is a good partner that makes your import fashion accessories from China much more safe and easy and saves you a lot of money and time. Click here to contact us right now.
2) Visit wholesale markets
Guangzhou wholesale market: most professional accessories market, Guangzhou's accessories styles and designs are the most innovative and closest to international fashion trends. It's quality higher than in other cities. It has a full supply chain of accessories.
Yiwu wholesale market: Variety of styles, normally supply low-priced products with poor quality, suitable for the low-end market.
3) Attend the Fair, such as the third phase of Canton Fair, and other Fair related to accessories.
Should you have any doubt about how to attend the Canton fair, please visit my article: Canton Fair Complex in 2019: Definitive Guide
Chapter 5: What kind of Compliance is needed for Shoe Accessories?
Different countries and areas have their own regulations for imported accessories. Some companies will hire the testing company to send them the report, and some companies will test via their own technical department.
Accessories test normally can be divided into two parts: physical test and chemical test. Physical test includes colorfastness, tensile test, sharp point, and edges, etc. The chemical test is mainly checking the content and thickness of hazardous chemical substances
For example, for zippers, it normally includes:
Testing 1: Harmful metal testing
Such as Lead (Pb), Barium (Ba), Cadmium (Cd), Antimony (Sb), Selenium, Chromium, Mercury (Hg), Arsenic (As), etc.
Testing 2: Zipper strength (BS 3084:2006) test as below: Puller attachment, Close-end, Top-stop, Lateral Strength, Slider locking
Chapter 6: How to Ship your Shoe Accessories from China?
Most widely-used shipping way of accessories is international express or by air, because of its small volume, and high requirement in timeliness.
But there still are some large-quantity importers prefer using LCL sea shipping, as their total volume of one order is big. Normally they will place the order a few months earlier to offset the long-time in sea shipping.
Chapter 7: Other Fashion Accessories for shoe
There are many other accessories related to fashion shoes, and these products can be sold to meet the various needs of customers, in this chapter, I will simply introduce some interesting products:
1) Shoe horn: help you wear shoes, can be used as a gift.
Widely used shoe horn: stainless steel shoe horn, plastic shoe horn, bamboo shoe horn, there are other special shoe horns like a natural bull horn shoe horn, leather with metal shoe horn…
2) Shoe heel protectors: normally for High-heel shoes.
3) sticker shoes:
include: Foot care shoe stickers & anti-slip shoe sticker pad
4) Shoe cream: bring tired leather shoes back to life
5) Shoe expander, or know as shoe stretcher, shoe extender
6) Shoe liners: known as non-slip invisible sock
7) Shoe display, shoebox
8) Shoe bags: travel shoe bags, or storage shoe bags
Conclusion
By reading this article, you have already known many different types of shoe accessories and have confidence in how to import accessories from China.
By the way, Blingsourcing has a hardware jewelry manufactory in Dongguan. We provide high quality and low price products.
Now I want to turn it over to you: Which types of accessories are you going to import from China first?
Let me know right now by leaving a message under the below.