A Brief History of Sourcing Nova
Established: 2019
Location: Guangzhou, Shenzhen
Humble Beginnings
Sourcing Nova’s story begins in 2005. Five friends graduated from high school and set off for Shenzen, the fastest growing city in southern China, looking for employment and to start careers. All five had solid ideas of their future – three turned to international trade and two entered the third-party logistics field. Their goal was to gain success based on their solid education and stellar work ethic.
By 2008, the five realized their dream was just that – a dream. They were all under the impression hard work would yeild success. However, China’s workplace is different. The bureaucracy of the workplace means no matter how hard you try and put forth effort, it is rare to be rewarded for such.
If your work efforts and ethics supercede others in the workplace, it is common to find yourself the target of office politics, shaming and mistreatment. Should this happen, the best solution is to find other employment.
Such was the case with the three in the international trade industry. All three cut their losses and went into business for themselves, specializing in finding manufacturers for international customers. The trio were doing all of the services of a sourcing agency without realizing it. They selected the name SOHO – Small Office/Home Office – before coming to the realization they were sourcing agents.
By this point, one of the five were still in third-party logistics, one, previously in third-party logistics, had left and was working in the e-commerce industry and one was building websites, data analysis and Internet marketing. The last of the five was in logistics, taking care of international freight for the other four friends.
The five came together again in 2018 and began to share their combined experiences. They all came to a similar conclusion: China is no longer the world’s leader of low-end, shoddy products. There was a shift.
The five were dealing with customers, who, on a regular basis, were sourcing high-end, quality products with good profit margins. The five all came to the same conclusion: They could start a business finding high quality products with excellent profit margins for international customers.
This was a great idea on paper, but the five faced a serious problem. They were all skilled in their individual industries but looking for products in different industries was new and different. What to do?
Their solution: The details are secondary to what is important – finding the best manufacturers in chosen industries so customers will have the finest products available. Again, solid on paper, but how to find the manufacturers?
The five started with two important pieces of data. The three who were working in procurement worked data analysis. They would buy and read industry reports and white papers. This way they learned about the industrial clusters within China and the best manufacturers in other industries.
The other two, familiar with logistics, used the data to verify each manufacturer within their network.
If you are in the U.S. or Europe, you are not likely to understand the sublties of Chinese business, specifically, guanxi, loosely translated as “business relationships.” One of the two has worked extensively with China’s largest port – Shenzen Yantian Port. His experience means a stellar understanding in industrial clusters and Chinese manufacturing.
The five solved the issue of finding top manufacturers and began to address the second issue: How to leverage these manufacturers into providing custom products for our customer base?
There was a period of trial and error. Their solution was to start small with only a few leading manufacturers and industries and plans to add more as the company grows. In fact, if you are a leading Chinese manufacturer, please leave contact information. We would love to speak with you about future partnerships.
Move forward to 2019. We have all looked carefully at China’s industrial base, read industry reports and been to industry expos and fairs.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had the team working from home. It was during this time the website came to fruition and was successfully published.
In 2021, Sourcing Nova went live as a new sourcing company.
Our philosophy
It has never been the goal of Sourcing Nova to master all technical details of a particular product industry. Instead we are looking to solid relationships with the best manufacturers within industrial clusters. This way we can get help with specific questions from our customers.
It is the expressed goal of Sourcing Nova not to find the cheapest products available. Our goal is the most profitable product that will match the world’s top brands. Your satisfaction, and your customer’s satisfaction, is our goal. We want to minimize the chances of unhappy customers.
The majority of sourcing agents within China will not share industry secrets, citing confidentiality between themselves and manufacturers. Sourcing Nova does not believe in this and has made attempted to publish information we think you need. It is our belief that the more information you have, the better the decision making process. The better the decision making process, the better the possibilty of success in your business venture. Our goal is to work with great people with great ideas. The more success you see, the better our own business and creativity can be.
Sourcing Nova does its best, but we also recognize our limitations. There are some fields we have not yet understood. We do believe we can find the best people within that field, and they can help with the best service, manufacturer and products.
Our advantage
One of the five have been in international logistics now for 16 years and have worked with some world first-class companies. There is a plethora of knowledge and experience for different customers with different needs.
Our logistics professionals have worked hard on improving capacity through the COVID-19 pandemic. Many sourcing companies cannot find shipping containers, but Sourcing Nova has resources and partners available at all times. This means your products will leave China on a set schedule. (Sadly, we cannot guarantee any times for unloading at the port of destination.)
If you have visited our site and read the pages, you can see our English is almost as strong as a native speaker, and we likely rank highly among our competition in this regard.
Sourcing Nova has three warehouses at our disposal. The largest is six km (3.2 miles) from the Shenzen Yantian Port container terminal. This warehouse sets itself apart from others in its stand-alone design and area of 6,500 square meters (nearly 70,000 square feet), making the logistics of this warehouse ideal.
Sourcing Nova believes in and offers pre-shipment inspections with two different methods offered: A third-party inspection company or the warehouse staff. The third-party inspection is done by professionals with experience and training. The warehouse inspection is cheaper but does not have the same degree of professionalism.
Our warehouse address
1. Unit B&D, on 11th Floor , Hung Cheung Industrial Centre (Phase II), No 10 Tsing Yeung Circuit , Tuen Mun, N.T., Hong Kong
2. No. 128, Lower Road, Dakang Community, Langshan Street, Longgang District, Shenzhen
3. No. 14-19, No. 4, 1st Floor, No. 428, Donghai Road, Yantian District, Shenzhen
Our license
Trading companies in China have certain limitations within the business. Logistics companies can source most products and offer tax benefits. Those tax benefits are available with different accounts and companies.