Finding a Hair Vendor: The Right Questions to ask a Hair Vendor
If you’re starting your hair business, one of the steps involves finding a hair vendor. Many people don’t know what questions to ask a hair vendor. At Bossique, we often see question lists copy-pasted from google and are expected to answer all of them.
It gets increasingly frustrating when people ask the wrong questions. For example: “Can you supply a certificate of authenticity?” might be an excellent question to ask a vendor from Russia who claims to sell Russian hair, but a silly question to ask a Chinese vendor who sells Chinese hair. People end up asking questions because they found them on Google and don’t even know what the correct answer would be to their question.
Your goal should always be to?find a vendor who can meet YOUR requirements, so?the questions you ask should help you determine whether that hair vendor is the right one for you.
If you don’t know which questions to ask a hair vendor, you probably don’t know what you’re looking for. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re making it very difficult to find a hair vendor who can supply that. So if this is your issue, go back to doing research.
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Googling questions to ask a hair vendor
We believe that it is essential that people who ask questions know the correct answer. We copy-pasted some of these “questions to ask a hair vendor?” lists and tried to help you understand if these questions are the right ones to ask your hair vendor.
1. WHAT KIND OF HAIR DOES YOUR COMPANY SELL, AND WHAT IS IT SPECIALIZED IN?
If you get an answer like “Virgin Hair” or “Remy Hair,” you will have to keep asking more questions to find out about the quality of the hair. Hair vendors use different marketing labels for their hair. For example, a Vietnamese and a Chinese vendor could have other ideas about the meaning of Remy Hair.
Raw hair is a label that generally means the same in every country. Virgin hair is the same quality as raw hair, but many companies use the title to advertise their chemically processed floor hair under a “virgin hair” label. Remy only means if the cuticles are aligned, but some floor hair will get processed with a non-remy to remy machine, indicating that the cuticles will be made to be aligned. So remy hair ends up being used for processed hair as well.
Sometimes you can derive what it is indirectly. For example, if a vendor’s virgin hair is lower quality than their raw hair,?it’s chemically processed floor hair. For raw hair, the answers are more straightforward. Raw hair, hair cut directly from a donor, and cuticle-aligned hair would all be good answers and aren’t confusing.
And instead of just focusing on the label, you could focus on the properties of hair. For example, hair that only bleaches to #27 is chemically processed floor hair, regardless of what they call it. And if it bleaches to #613 with healthy cuticles, it’s supposed to be their best quality.
2. DO YOU SELL SINGLE DONOR BUNDLES?
Single Donor hair is one of those other marketing scams. While it would be more costly to produce single donor bundles, they offer 0 quality advantage over hair collected from a few donors. That gives 0 reason to make them single-donor.
3. HOW LONG HAS THE COMPANY BEEN IN BUSINESS?
I don’t think this question is essential when finding a hair vendor.
Hair vendors that have existed for a long time are considered more reliable. I was a sales manager at a company that has been around for a long time. The boss was greedy for money and decreased the quality to save more money without telling the employees and clients. Even though they existed for a long time, the boss kept sales in the dark, meaning that all these years didn’t lead to more reliability. Generally, larger companies need larger profit margins to operate, meaning higher prices for the same hair.
At the same time, we’ve existed for about 3-4 years, offering some of the highest quality hair in the market, with a relatively small profit margin due to us keeping our company small. Those we consider our competitors and do quite well with customer service and quality haven’t been around for much longer.
It’s all about finding a hair vendor who can supply your requirements, preferably for the right price. But even if the price is a little high, it’s better to pay $3 per bundle extra for a reliable hair vendor than to have a cheaper vendor who makes $200 mistakes.
4. WHAT SETS YOU APART FROM OTHER COMPANIES?
This question could have an exciting answer.
At Bossique, we principally answer: “We’re one of the few vendors who supply insights into the hair industry on our?blog?and our?Facebook?and teach clients most of the harmful practices that vendors have and teach you to recognize them. So if we sell you bad hair at any point, you will be able to recognize and prove it with our information.”
It’s an opportunity for a salesperson to leave an impression. However, most salespeople aren’t exactly good at being creative, possibly not good at English, and will say things like: “We have been around for 15 years and have hundreds of happy clients.”
Being around for a long time isn’t always very positive, and any company will quickly show you their positive reviews, not their negative ones.
5. ARE YOU ALSO SELLING ON A MARKETPLACE LIKE AMAZON OR ALIEXPRESS?
I don’t think this question matters unless you plan to buy from those places directly.
6. CAN I HAVE A VIDEO OR SKYPE TOUR TO SEE YOUR FACILITY OR PRODUCTS?
This question can be helpful to ask your hair vendor if you have specific things you would like to see. For example:
Hair vendors are often busy, and they won’t like it that much to take an hour to show you all their products and answer all your questions by video.
And you should be aware that most hair vendor sales work from a small office (or home even), which might or might not have stock. Most of the hair gets usually stored externally in a warehouse, which might or might not be their own. Probably not something that interesting to see. Even if they’re small, that could potentially be a good thing.
7. ARE YOU A TRADE COMPANY OR A MANUFACTURER?
It matters that whoever sells you a product can provide you with the products you require, provide good customer service, and don’t make mistakes that cost you money. It’s not important whether they are a trading company or a manufacturer.?Pricewise, they’re pretty similar, and the differences are overestimated. Just remember that manufacturers deal with large quantities, and they will give reasonable prices to those who buy wholesale. And by wholesale, I don’t mean ten bundles a month. It’s safe to assume that they quickly add a 10-20% profit margin on their retail prices based on the extra logistics involved.
8. WHAT IS THE DENSITY OF YOUR FRONTALS AND CLOSURES?
I don’t think you should ask your hair vendor this question.
The answer should be about 130-150%, but even as a sales with plenty of experience, I have no way to verify whether they are. Your hair vendor will probably struggle with the honest answer to it. It’s better to ask for pictures or videos of the lace products they recently sold and see if they meet your requirements. As all these products are hand-tied, all products will vary in fullness. If you want to ask about anything, ask about the weight.
9. DO THE BUNDLES AND CLOSURES MATCH IN COLOR?
You could ask your hair vendor, but the honest answer is: They’re close but don’t match perfectly. However, we try our best to pick the ones that match.
Most lace products are made by a hair manufacturer specializing in lace products. Bundles get produced by another one. A lot of this hair gets dyed, and not every manufacturer uses an equal amount. However, it’s pretty easy to work around this for a hair vendor, as they will mostly pick the bundles and closures closest to each other.
10. ARE THERE SYNTHETIC FIBERS IN YOUR HAIR?
This question might be more critical when looking for cheap but still human hair. Synthetic hair could cause significant issues when coloring your hair or applying heat.
Please note that those red/orange strands aren’t synthetic fibers; they’re primarily human hair with missing pigment (or possibly hair dyed with henna).
11. IS THE HAIR PROCESSED, AND IF SO, HOW?
Asking if the hair is processed could be worth asking your hair vendor.?How?it gets processed?is especially important to know.
Steam-styling could be considered processing, but it doesn’t significantly affect hair quality.
If it’s floor hair, it will get processed in one of two ways:
The former would be low quality, and the latter will be medium quality.
More than half the raw hair is also processed to some extent. The hair material quality is inferior, and people prefer darker and smoother hair. Therefore many hair manufacturers end up minorly processing the hair. You can quickly test for it by using acetone or have some indications for it by, for example, ironing the hair.
Curls mean that the hair’s cuticles go in a 360-degree direction. Some will give the hair an acid bath before producing curly textures. This only has a minor effect on the quality and is an essential process.
The issue is that even salespeople don’t know all the details about processing. So?this kind of information is vital to know, and you know how to test for these things before buying from a hair vendor.
12. IS THE HAIR CUTICLE ALIGNED?
It’s worth asking your hair vendor. Just keep in mind that for some floor hair, the cuticles get aligned with a non-remy to remy machine. Technically you can call them aligned as well. What you want to know is if the hair was cut directly from a donor or if it was floor hair.
13. HOW ARE WEFTS CONSTRUCTED?
Double-wefted is probably what you want and are most likely to get from any hair vendor.
14. HAVE YOU HAD ANY ISSUES WITH LICE?
Hair in China mostly gets disinfected. While you can sometimes see the egg sacks attached to the hair, they’re probably dead already. It’s something that you can’t avoid altogether. Even if your hair vendor complained, they probably wouldn’t want to admit it.
15. WHAT IS THE TRUE ORIGIN OF THE HAIR?
A Chinese hair vendor who claims that they sell Brazilian, Malaysian and Peruvian hair can’t be trusted.?You don’t want Indian hair from China, as imported Indian hair will typically be low quality. The highest quality hair we have access to in China is Chinese hair. It would be best if you try to find a vendor who claims to sell hair from their own country.
16. HOW IS THE LENGTH OF THE HAIR MEASURED (TRUE IN LENGTH OR NOT?)
It could be an essential question. When we get hair from a hair manufacturer, some 24″ for example, reach 26″. Hair vendors can decide to sell it as 26″ hair, but it will be really thin in the ends. This way, they increase their profit by roughly?$10?for raw hair. We mainly aim for quality, and would still cut this 26″ to a 25″ giving our bundles slightly fuller appearances, and still sell it as 24″.
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17. CAN THE HAIR BE COLORED, BLEACHED, OR DYED?
All hair can be bleached except salon hair. Salon hair was dyed many times already and would sometimes only reach color #4. Bleaching results are based on quality; if you’re looking for raw hair, it should be bleachable to #613. If the bleach limit is around #27, it’s processed floor hair. A mix of these can often reach slightly lighter colors but wouldn’t fully reach #613, or at least not healthily.
The question is still whether the vendor is honest about it or not.
18. HOW LONG WILL THE HAIR LAST WITH PROPER MAINTENANCE & CARE?
Be aware that what the hair vendor says are estimates. Hair vendors don’t wear their extensions. We don’t have insights into most of our clients’ maintenance routines and don’t get regular feedback on units they bought a few years ago. So asking this is only a rough indication of whether the hair is supposed to be raw or “virgin” hair.
19. IS THERE A SILICONE COAT APPLIED?
Much lower-quality hair has a silicone coating, giving it that shiny look. Washing the hair multiple times could potentially reveal the terrible quality of the actual hair. However, we have some luxury clients who specifically request to coat their custom raw hair bundles with silicone, as it gives a bit more of a “wow” feeling when you open the package.
You can tell it from pictures of the bundle, so be sure to ask your hair vendor for images and videos.
20. WHAT IS THE PROCESS TO ENSURE HIGH QUALITY, AND HOW DO YOU MAINTAIN HIGH QUALITY?
If a hair manufacturer buys $10.000 worth of hair material, they know what quality they’re buying. For example, our high-quality manufacturer categorizes top-end hair in 3 grades. The highest one is used for hair that bleaches to very light colors. 2nd grade goes to clients they like more, and 3rd grade to the rest. Anything lower gets rejected.
It’s possible to have some minor differences or something little happening during production. However, quality is easy to control, and significant changes are mostly conscious decisions.
I handle most bundles myself. While we used to do periodic testing, I can mostly tell differences by smell, sight, and feeling.
21. WHAT IS YOUR RETURN POLICY?
Always see if you like the bundles before washing, bleaching, and installing. If you return bundles intact, the vendor can still resell them and is more likely to accept a return.
If you used a bundle, it could no longer be resold, and the vendor loses 100% of the product’s value. With a profit margin of maybe 10-30% for vendors, you can imagine they will be resistant to losing money.
22. Do you have 12A hair?
Once a hair vendor sees this question, they will generally estimate your knowledge about hair to be relatively low and possibly take advantage of you.?Grades aren’t some universal quality.?They’re random names given to certain hair lines without specific meaning.
23. WHAT ARE THE SHIPPING CONDITIONS, IN TIME TO DELIVER, HOLIDAY SEASONS, AND EXPENSES?
In China, there’s no option to ship during holidays. Holidays mean that everyone is off work, including shipping companies.
Delivery time is a silly thing to ask. Hair vendors control how fast they can ship it out, but the delivery time is really up to the shipping carrier. It’s the same for all vendors, so asking every vendor is pointless. Generally, it’s 3-7 days, but sometimes people are unlucky.
Shipping is always going to be expensive for hair extensions. It should be weight based, and if it’s not, it’s included in the price of the bundles.
24. DO YOU ALLOW SAMPLE ORDERS?
If you’re looking to sample, you don’t want to have to order 1kg. You can tell 90% about the hair from a faction of a bundle. If ten hair vendors catch your interest, and you have to order a $300 full install from them, that’s an investment of $3000. If you spend $30 on a sample instead, you’d be able to test 100 vendors for the same money.
Or ideally, spend $300 on testing ten vendors, then move on to a 2nd round of testing for those who pass your initial test. There’s much value in having data, and you’ll better understand what’s available.
25. DO YOU ACCEPT PAYPAL?
PayPal is one of the easiest ways to transfer money, with protections for both buyer and seller. However, it’s also an increasingly frustrating platform for hair vendors. For example, some Chinese friends no longer get the PayPal fee refunded when they refund a client. This means that it is an instant loss of 5%.
In the beginning, it’s still recommended to pay with PayPal. Any other option and you lose your money if there’s any issue. So be sure to use other payment methods only once you fully trust the hair vendor.
Just be aware that hair vendors can charge you the PayPal fee as PayPal updated its regulations in 2021. Even if a vendor charges it, it’s already included in the prices of the products. Either option is acceptable.
26. DO YOU HAVE ANY PROMOTIONS ON HOLIDAYS, SUCH AS BLACK FRIDAY OR CHRISTMAS?
Selling wholesale:?Buy more, get better prices. — Selling retail: Wait for holidays, get better prices.
The first thing I think when seeing someone asking for a holiday promotion is that they’re buying hair for themselves or are new to the hair industry. Hair vendors mainly have these kinds of promotions for retail buyers.
27. DO YOU CHANGE YOUR PRICELIST OFTEN?
You don’t want a vendor who changes their price list often. However, we’ve been in a situation where our profit margin was roughly 10-15%. At some point, 1 USD was worth about 6.6 Chinese Yuan (CNY). It dropped over time to 6.3. That’s a 5% loss of income, and we couldn’t survive on simply 5-10% profit and had to adjust our prices.
Things that are entirely out of a hair vendor’s hands can happen, and they must survive. You will be in similar situations and have to do the same. Your prices are your prices, and you don’t want clients who complain about your prices. It’s the same for hair vendors.
28. IS THE SHIPMENT INSURED, AND WHO PAYS THE INSURANCE FEE?
The insurance Fee will only cover if a package gets lost during transit. Without this, FedEx/DHL will only reimburse up to?$100?for a lost parcel. The fee we roughly pay is about 0.3% for every package.
Packages that show up as delivered in the tracking information will not be covered by insurance. So be sure to also pay for “Signature upon delivery,” or make sure that there’s always someone home at the delivery address. Your hair vendor can’t be held responsible if your package gets stolen by one of your neighbors.
29. DO YOU OFFER DISCOUNTS TO REGULAR CUSTOMERS?
There’s always some room to give a discount, based on the order details. Vendors will generally be happy if you order short-length bundles, as they will pay fewer fees to their manufacturer. Just be aware that you don’t want your clients asking for a discount every time they order, especially if they contain tiny amounts at a time.
Be aware that?hair factory prices are primarily a marketing scam.
30. IS THE WHOLESALE PRICE NEGOTIABLE?
Make sure that you’re able to buy wholesale before asking. We’ve been asked by many small buyers who might order ten bundles in half a year if they can negotiate the price. While we wouldn’t tell it directly, we consider you a retail buyer who has problems getting her business off the ground. Price isn’t the issue there, but probably marketing and consistency are.
31. DO YOU MANUFACTURE TAGS, BUNDLE BAGS, OR SHIPPING BOXES?
No hair vendor manufactures these. They hire another company to make them for them. Many have a high MOQ, and if you ever want these products shipped to your country, you will pay a fortune. At that point, it would probably be better to look for a manufacturer on Alibaba with affordable (but slow) shipping or have them produced locally.
32. CAN THEY ARRANGE PRIVATE LABELLING FOR YOU SO THAT YOU CAN SELL USING YOUR BRAND NAME?
If you buy these products and have them in your vendor’s office, they can easily add them when shipping out your orders. But then again, you might want to use multiple vendors, which complicates things.
33. CAN I GET IMAGES OF THE PRODUCTS FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES?
Never advertise with the product pictures of your vendor. It makes it relatively easy for your clients to find out who your vendor is and buy from them directly. If you invest in a website, try to learn about photography, get a two or three-point lighting setup, a non-reflective surface for under the product, a decent (phone) camera, and make your product pictures.
34. WHAT IS THE BUSINESS ADVICE YOU HAVE FOR ME SELLING HAIR?
Stop focusing on finding a vendor.?Marketing is where the real money gets made.
Remember…
It would be best if you were asking questions that help you find out whether that hair vendor is the right one for you.
If you require cheap wigs, you can ask for factory-made wigs. If you need more quality pre-made wigs, you can ask if your vendor can ask a wig maker to make them with their bundles and lace products.
If you require quality hair which can bleach to light colors, you ask if the hair can bleach to light colors.
If you require quality, should you be asking for the four most essential steps to producing quality hair extensions?
If you require something affordable, do you have to ask if the hair can bleach to #613?
If you’re interested in learning more, you could read some of our other articles. Try this one for example:
A lot of our articles first start on our?Facebook page. Follow us there and feel free to leave your questions, or contact us through WhatsApp/iMessage: +86 135 3369 3283.
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