Jiangmen Dianyi Display System Manufactory

Buyer’s Nationality:
Italy

Seller:
Jiangmen Dianyi Display System Manufactory

Seller Website:
www.china-display.com

Seller Address:
Building No. 1, Yizhongwei Industrial Park, Lile Town, Jiangmen, Guangdong, 529000 China

Initial contact with the supplier:
Trade Show

Type of product(s) being purchased:
Outdoor Light Signs

Value of the Purchase Order when the incident occurred:
25,001 to 100,000 USD

Destination market of order in question:
Western Europe

Type of Complaint(s):
contract violations

Stage of relationship with the supplier at the time of the incident:
Initial Order

User Experience:
The supplier in question is an “outdoor signs” producer; with signs I mean the stuff we usually hang outside the shops, lighted and branded with the logo of the shop.

One year ago the supplier produced a sample and they sent us it for approval. It seemed a quite good product, so we bought about 650 double side signs.
It was a really expensive purchase (about US$74k) and we were satisfied because we were sure about the quality of the product.

The supplier also gave us all the certifications of CE, quality of ink, safety electrical system, etc. In march we started to distribute about 450 signs and after 3 months, on the first distributed ones the orange color of the sign started fading. The writing, printed in 2 colors: orange and blue, after 3 months the blue color was perfect, but the orange color was completely faded, no more visible.

We stopped the distribution and we withdrew from the market all the already distributed signs in order to replace the plates with new ones of good quality.
The problem started with the first 20 distributed signs, so we had to remove all the already hanged signs (all over in Italy!!!), the faded signs and the signs not faded yet in order to prevent the problem of fading.

We had to replace all the printed plates at our expenses: both the already faded and the other not yet faded plates, of course with a huge damage for us.
The shops gave us several pictures of the faded signs and we sent them to our supplier.

The supplier agreed to reproduce only the faded plates (only the signs we provided pictures evidence), but we were asked to pay the urgent shipment costs!

We examined the signs and we discovered our supplier printed them with ink for “indoor” use and not for “outdoor”, so the ink wasn’t UV rays resistant.
Furthermore we booked other 850 signs, because at the beginning the signs seemed well done and we payed to the supplier the 30% advance payment for the new supply.

Due to this problem our customers cancel the new order, but our supplier didn’t agree to refund the advance payment.

At the end we have lost our customers, they didn’t pay us due to the faulty signs, the new supply has been lost, the Chinese supplier didn’t replace the signs and he didn’t refund us the advance payment of the new supply cancelled.

I hope I was able enough to describe our problem with an unreliable Chinese supplier.

User Recommendations:
Never trust to a supplier even Alibaba Gold Supplier.
After receiving the sample, do not check it by yourself but let it test by an accredited laboratory (TÜV, etc.) in order to discover in advance if the product received is comply with the technical specification requested.