Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product 6 months ago
chabuduo is basically fail fast, fail early with Chinese characteristics. Maybe because I was in a frat, but talking to Chinese salespeople seems very similar to talking to my frat brothers.
Personally, I never really had too many issues sourcing from China because I made sure I was always introduced to a reliable partner first.
And secondly, I told them when deciding on two options, choose the better quality option, regardless of price.
Basically, I didn't tell them to save us much money as possible if that made all the difference.