John, I hope you end up going to China instead of the rep coming to the US. I think the experience for you and Toplace the company will be more valuable that way.

I have a good friend whose company has products manufactured in several factories throughout China. Until recently, he had never gone there to see how his products are actually made. He did go there finally, and the result is that he has a much better understanding of how the factories operate, and what their capabilities are. He was able to communicate more clearly to the people who run the factory what was expected of them in terms of quality control, and even did some on-site demos for the workers showing them what he would accept for product, and what he would reject.

I would think from a quality control standpoint, Toplace would have far more to benefit from you going there, than for the factory rep to come here. Just my opinion.

Yes, that's a good point about going there vs. him coming here. You probably learn much more by going there, but that may not be practical for you.

John, you might want to compile a list of questions from customers (ones that you need the guy's help to answer and ones that you agree are important questions) and fire away.

Here's a simple question I've always been curious about. Maybe you know. Maybe you could ask him.

When a customer orders 2 units in one order, do 2 different people make them at the same time or does one person make a unit and then make the second unit. I sometimes wonder if it saves time to order 2 units at once or if i might as well order one unit at a time back to back.

Thanks, everyone, for the input. I agree that a trip to China would be the best option so I could inspect the factory and observe operations first hand. I'm not sure how it will work out but if he comes to the USA I'll ask him to make a video of the process---how the base is sized, the knotting process, the quality inspecttions, etc. And if I end up going to China I'll make my own video. Either way I'll have something to post on the website and share with everyone. Again, thanks.
Regards,
John

Dino,
When you order 2 units at once they're ventilated by two different technicians. If it were done by one technician it would take about 8-10 weeks for the 2 unit to be completed. The rest of the work such as color matching, curling, making the base, etc. are done by 1 person.
Regards,
John

I think you should mention the possibility of making 'partial' hairpiece to order instead of wasting the time/materials to make a topper for people who just need to bring their temporal points down a bit to get rid of that 'horseshoe' hairline look.

For the price of a topper, or a little more, they could probably create two sets of temporal partials and use far less hair/labour in the process, actually meaning they would make more profits.