Assessing a supplier you do not know: five checks before the first order

Changing supplier is one of the decisions practices postpone longest, and the reason is not inertia: the existing supplier is known, and the new one is an unquantified risk.

That risk can be reduced with a few checks, and it is worth doing because the cost of never changing is that you always pay the price of whoever you have.

The first check concerns identity. Whoever sells must be an identifiable company, with a registered name and a verifiable VAT number. A seller not displaying these is not a supplier: it is a profile.

On Oralzon sellers are registered companies whose tax details are verified at activation, and identity verification of the legal representative is mandatory before they can receive payments.

The second check concerns compliance information. For a medical device, CE marking, manufacturer and class must appear. If they are missing, the absence is itself information.

The third is the catalogue. A supplier with ten badly uploaded items and no technical detail will behave in service as they behaved in uploading: care over the catalogue anticipates care in fulfilment.

The fourth is reviews, read properly. What matters is less the average than the content: what exactly is said, whether the problems reported recur, and how the seller replied.

A new seller with no reviews is not a risky seller, it is a seller on whom you have no data. That differs from one with repeated negative reviews about the same problem.

The fifth check is on price, and it runs against instinct. A price well below the average on an identifiable product deserves a question, not enthusiasm.

In medical devices, substantial differences often have explanations: a product intended for another market, a batch near expiry, or an item that is not what it appears to be.

The practical way of handling residual risk is to limit exposure. The first order from a new supplier is kept small, on a non-urgent item, and serves to check timing, packaging and the match between description and product.

A trial order costs little and yields information no advance check can give you. If it goes well, the second order is placed with different confidence.

In summary: verify company identity and tax details, check that compliance information is present, look at how the catalogue is kept, read the content of reviews rather than the average, be wary of prices that are too low, and place a small first order on something you do not need immediately.