Securityman

I interested in importing CCTV cameras and digital video recorders from China or Korea, analogue at this stage, for commercial and residential applications. They would be a range of internal and external cameras across a number of different uses. The reason is to increase my profit margin and offer something to differentiate my company. Is anyone doing this? Who can you recommend as a good quality company? I get regular spam from Longse, Cantok and many others and I'm sure there must be some decent suppliers in China, if only I knew who? Can you help?

I've had good results installing the Hik Vision range. For starters theres a 3MP WDR external dome camera. We capture number plates at 30 meters which is 10 more than your 65 ft. However you need to watch where the camera is mounted when trying to obtain number plates. Hik Vision also do a nifty low cost external fixed lens 3 MP camera with IR illumination too. There's also a 1.3 MP PTZ with something like a 20x zoom lens and it can all sit on their 80 MBPS NDVR.

Thanks Tomcctv. My contacts on LinkedIn are fellow security professionals, not the Asian companies touting their wares. One of my competitors here in New Zealand is importing CTring DVrs for example. Ive never heard of them but they seem to be OK from what Ive seen and he's doing well. But it s like looking for a needle in a haystack finding the decent suppliers. And just to be clear, Im not looking for cheapest, just better priced than what I'm paying locally. From a customers view point they've never heard of Hik Vision till I turn up. But at the moment its three cameras at $1000 cost each gone wrong.....profit just about gone

Hi everyone, I hope to learn a few things here and hopefully contribute too. Based in New Zealand. Security man

Yes I do think some people will give help when asked, just as some won't. This is a forum for sharing, just witness all the info people give out on here generously and freely. LinkedIn connections also freely gave advice. With regard to warranty costs etc that will only impact if I drop my sell price.i.e ? $500 camera with 100% markup =$1000 sell & $500 profit. $150 camera with 100% markup = $300 sell and $150 profit. The business case is sell at $1000 and buy at $150 in this example. I recently installed 15 Hik Vision 3MP WDR external cameras on a Hik Vision NDVR. I've had 3 camera failures in 3 month and all under warranty so no install issues.. Even the cheap camera have to go some way to beat that. That's why I'm considering is there a different way.

These responses are the obvious ones that occur to me when I consider this option. It would be easy to turn away and say they are all poor suppliers. But does anyone have direct experience of the poor service mentioned or is it all generalisations. Thanks for the details on the expo that's one good idea worth considering. I have had a few responses from LinkedIn where the company Longse you mention was given a good recommendation . One company said in 3 years hardly any failures. Only downside was lack of English but product good. If I did go ahead any warranties offered would be in line with the market I work in. Again, I'm looking for direct experiences with Asian suppliers. Thanks for all your input so far, it makes for a good debate. With the huge amount of low cost suppliers there must be some good ones out there.

These are the questions I'm exploring as theres plenty of opportunities in China, its just a case of finding them. In answer to your question about stock and costs, and then doing the maths thats an easy answer. The local costs for an average camera, say a Hik Vision analogue camera is 10x that of a potential imported camera, so stock and costs isn't my concern. There's plenty of margin to be made to cover all of those style issues. In fact I could swop out a faulty camera or DVR at my expense and it would still be more economic than using local suppliers. I agree that bulk buying is required, but that means I always have stock at hand so your suggested 3 week delay for stock wouldn't happen. The question I'm looking for answers to is the quality of a Chinese supplier. Get that right and the other issues don't occur. Can any one help and name some good companies?

Some good points there thanks. I'm only looking to import and sell to my own customers and not supply the industry. Has anyone got any examples of where its worked well ?