Sunglasses Report — Supplier Profile — Sample Pages: Sourcing Sunglasses from China

Supplier Profile: Chengyi Optical (Xiamen) Co. Ltd

Chengyi Optical (Xiamen) Co. Ltd exported US$17.6 million worth of sunglasses in 2003, up 4 percent on the previous year. Eighty percent of its exports are ODM orders and the rest OEM, for clients including Guess, Polaroid, Next, Alpina, Fossil and Puma; the United States and the European Union each take a 40 percent share of exports, with Asia and other regions taking the remainder. The company emphasises design capability and fast turnaround: highly automated facilities can produce a sample in one day, against an industry average of one week, and the company produces 40 to 50 new designs each month. Chengyi holds ISO 9001-2000 certification from SGS, and its products meet US FDA standards.

Chengyi manufactures reading glasses and optical frames as well as sunglasses. Most sunglasses are midrange and high-end models with FOB prices averaging US$20 per dozen, but the company also accepts high-volume low-end orders — including one premium order that required delivery of 11 million pairs of sunglasses in three months. A newer line of acetate sunglasses was in small but growing production. Lenses are mostly acrylic, PC and polarized: low-end and midrange lenses come from Taiwan-invested suppliers in Xiamen, high-end lenses from Japan and the United States, and more than half of frame materials are bought overseas — stainless steel from Taiwan and Germany, nickel silver from Japan and South Korea, Monel from Germany, titanium from Japan and aluminium alloy from Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan. The Xiamen factory covers 12,000 square metres, employs 1,700 workers and produces about 1.4 million pairs a month.

What a Full Profile Adds

The sample shows the profile template at work: company background and markets first, then products with price ranges, then manufacturing and research capability, then outlook. Across all 73 profiles that single template is the point — every manufacturer is examined on the same points, so a buyer can line profiles up and compare export shares, OEM and ODM mix, design capacity, quality systems and price positioning without translating between formats. Details such as a production checklist — lines, research and quality control staff, machinery and processes — turn a profile from a description into an audit summary.

Profiles also connect back to the rest of the report. A supplier's prices can be checked against the product gallery's 165 models and the industry overview's price trends, and its outlook against the supplier survey. When the three agree, a buyer has a supplier worth sampling; when they disagree, the profile has done its other job — showing where to ask harder questions before an order is placed.