After meeting many buyers during various business meetings I can safely draw a couple of assumptions of their opinion on suppliers. Most buyers seem to like to chose their old suppliers. Having said that if a new supplier has the capability to offer something innovative or better, the buyer usually chooses him.

In my opinion there are two sides for the buyer to consider:

(i) The old supplier (also his/ her long-time cooperation seller) may have also won the buyers trust. The buyer knows him and also the products inside out. So the buyer can buy the products without much worry. So most buyers chose to buy from the old supplier. What's more...sometimes the seller may give you some discounts too - all buyers love this, right?

(ii) But the other side of the coin is that the old supplier would always be selling the same products and will thus have no innovation. And you never know if there comes some problems someday with this long-time supplier, where will the buyer get the products? The buyers should always take this risk into consideration when dealing solely with old suppliers.

In my opinion if the buyer always try to find a new and better supplier, he/ she will always be fully ready for any sudden eventualities. When the problem comes, the buyer will be rest assured because he/ she will have more other choices of suppliers to choose from. And by trying different suppliers the buyer also has more chances of getting better products.

However this is my opinion. Will appreciate comments on this topic from both suppliers/ buyers and sellers.

Mr. Rakesh Joshi

Joshi Enterprise

Manager, Joshi Enterprise
Dispur, India

Free Member, Joined :02/02/2007
No of Topics Posted : 122
Reply/Comments : 16