Originally Posted by CarolSLC

In my experience, you did the right thing by working with the manufacturer and getting what relief you could through them. I'm in the US, but we have imported a lot of goods from China. It was very difficult ordering small quantities to guarantee quality merchandise. They were manufacturing to our specs, the samples were great, but the actual product when delivered was often inferior. We found that what button, thread, zipper, etc had to be in the contract or they would sub inferior ones. We finally started using a middleman that spent a lot of time in China. He placed huge orders through the factories and was an important customer, therefore had weight with them to make sure all of his customers' orders were done correctly. He'd also be in China to check the products coming off the line. We did develop a relationship with one manufacturer and could count on their quality. But my husband went to China and spent time with them to develop that relationship.