15 traps that probably hide behind the pricing in hair straightener importing

When you purchase hair straighteners from China. You finally narrowed your lists of hair straightener manufacturers, at least you need to compare them from quality/service/price among them to choose the one that is standing out.

Quality- you or your engineer can compare from the samples, and service- you must be very professional to tell by feeling the attitude of the salesman by chatting. But how about the price? You may take it as the simplest one as data can tell easily from the number of prices. But is that really so simple?

A professional buyer in the hair straightener industry must have experienced this, 4 or 5 quotation sheets from different Chinese hair straightener manufacturers, the details are different. It is certain that in each quotation there are product pictures, price, MOQ, lead time, terms of payment, but if looking down to the quotation sheet carefully, you may find that specifications, standards of QC, artworks, packaging there would be big differences and some of them just skipped this content. But these things hidden may matter much for your product even your brand or easily fall yourself into a trap in purchasing hair straighteners from your manufacturer.

1.Plate

Mainly there are ceramic plates, aluminum plates, or titanium plates, the price may differ for purchasing. And the color is also the art you must concern about. For more information for plates, you can see: https://xiaoticlipper.com/hair-straightener-plates/

2. Housing Material

There are mainly ABS/Nylon/PET for choice, the cost is different, and for a hair straightener, you should consider about the heat resistant-special part will be very near enough to the heating area while working, toughness& strength-influence the fragility and hardness, density-also influence the cost as these materials are charged by weight, friendliness with silkscreen materials. Most of the time, the handling and inner cover will use PET material and round side cover just ABS because of the different position away from the heat.

3. Housing Coating

If no requirement for coating, there will be words like “injection” or “injection color”, which means that the hair straightener just comes out without coating. There are oil painting, water transfer printing, rubber finish, or even new Nano plating. And of course, each also has different levels.

4. Power Cord

Material: Rubber or PVC.

Thickness: US standard “AWG” number includes the info for the thickness of power cord, which influences the max current that can be carried.

Cord Shape: round or square cord.

Length: hair straightener’s power cord is mainly 1.8M-3M

Plug: there is mainly UL/EU/UK plug, for details see: https://xiaoticlipper.com/hair-straightener-purchase/

Wrapped by Velcro or just a PVC Cord

Standard: UL/CE/Rohs Standard or not

5.Temperature Range

Mainly 180-230 °C or 360-450℉

6.Voltage/frequency/Power

Usually, a hair straightener is made with dual voltage 110V-240V/50-60Hz, and power depending on the standard of the certification

7.Heating element

PTC or MCH heater, difference, and details please see: https://xiaoticlipper.com/hair-straightener-heater/

8. Addition Function

Infrared, LED display, Touch screen, steamed, wet to dry, automatic safety shut off, etc. Each function will add in the cost of your hair straightener

9.Standard or Certification

UL/CETL/CE/Rohs/CB, your hair straightener should be produced strictly to the standard of your market and industry standard.

10.Standard of Silkscreen

It’s very important but many buyers may have ignored it!!! When you customized or make a private label for your brand hair straightener, the logo is very important, can you imagine that your logo is blurred and indistinct or easily fade or scratched? There below are the mainly 3 test for silkscreen on hair straighteners:

Adhesion test：The hair straightener industry standard is to be stickered and tore away by a 3M600 sticker on the same position 3 times and no fading.

Friction Test： To rub in force of 500g vertical power continually, the silkscreen is still clear and distinguishable.

Anti-Alcohol test：99% alcohol under 1kg pressure wipe back and forth on the same position 20 times, no fading of gloss or color.

11.Packaging

Manual: the thickness of paper and material, the way to binding or fold.

Giftbox type: there are common drawer box, magnetic box, full telescope （like Apple cellphone）

Printing artwork: there will be art paper or specialty paper, Laminating, embossed logo, hot stamping/foil (gold, silver or other colors), UV in hair straightener giftbox

Carton standard: K=A reinforced no nail environment friendly out carton are mostly applied in hair straighteners as it is endured in a collision and falling, and it must be able to pass drop testing to avoid damage to inner broken by transportation.

12. Price Term

EXW/FOB/CIF/DDU/DDP

EXW: goods hand over in manufacture, you should take the cost of shipping from the manufacturer to your warehouse. Also, the balance should be paid before handling to your forwarder.

FOB: goods hand over when the shipment leaves the port of China, that means factory should take the risk, cost and responsibility till the goods left the port.

CIF: goods hand over when the shipment arrived at the port of destination, the factory should take the risk, cost and responsibility

DDU/DDP: factory should deliver the goods to your pointed destination. The difference is “DDU” means “Unpaid” and no risk from the seller, and “DDP” means the seller should “Pay” and be responsible for the risk. The charges include not only tax but also custom charges, handling charges, and other charges from the port of the destination.

13. Inspection-AQL standard

AQL means Acceptable Quality Limit, which typically considered to be the worst quality level that is still considered satisfactory, the maximum percent defective that can be considered satisfactory. “AQL 0.65” means I want no more than 0.65% defective items in the whole order quantity, on average over several production runs with that supplier

There are 3 inspection levels, I, II, and III, most of the time Lever II shall be used if nothing specified for the hair straightener industry.

In XiaoTi, most customers with the big brand names would require 100% inspection and 0 defectives for fear of bad influence for the end customer.

14.Inspection-Range

Including safety tests, visual checks, packing check, and function test.

15. Order quantity

Price relative to the quantity per shipment for each destination port or could be accumulated, this would matter when the price includes the shipping, so should be made clear then no more argument after placing the order.