The Google chinese language translator is now available in beta. We tried it last night when someone posted a comment in Chinese. At first we thought it was spam, since we have have had a lot of problems on forums with global attacks. However, looking at the length of the comment and its arrangement made it look like it might be real.
We visited the translator service cut and pasted the comment in and got back nice, on topic, comment. I am sure the translation is not perfect, but it certainly is good enough to tell the writer was asking about a specific subject.
It makes us think adding a link to this feature to websites with international interest might significantly increase traffic. In the case of learning how to buy from China, the translation should be good enough to narrow down the list of sites to those who are more likely to offer what you are looking for. I think it would also be good enough to get a feel for terms and conditions that might also rule out some providers.
I have come up with a product idea which would use a variety of tempered glass blanks as a starting. A quick search for that term brought up the Alibaba site. For those of you who are not familiar with it, this is a huge China based search engine and service that attempts to collect verified manufacturers at one location. I have seen occasional writeups about them, but have no personal experience with them.
One of the manufacturers they list claims they can provide tempered glass blanks in a variety of shapes and a delivery time of 4-6 weeks. Prices, which are not mentioned, are FOB their factory. Being completely new to this, that leaves a few questions :)
I can see I wll need to learn a lot more about the blanks themselves. What shapes and sizes do they produce? Are they available in colors? They say the minimum order is 2,000 items. Can they be mixed and matched within the 2,000 or is that 2,000 of each. Just figureing out what to buy will get interestig.
The whole export - import is a mystery to me. How do you get the products you bought from the factory to a shipping point? I assume there are export taxes, rules, and procedures. I assume the same bureaucratic issues also apply at the import end.
For testing my idea it will clearly make more sense to locate a retail supplier in the USA and buy from them. However, if the products sell it would quickly become worth the time and effort of learning how to import the tempered glass blanks and whatever other items I need at the lowest possible price.