Manufacturing
The importer asked as though they manufactured it
You have no factory and the questions arrive as if you did. Between you and whoever made it lie eight thousand kilometres and an unanswered email.
You buy a finished product abroad, bring it in and sell it. There is no machine in your warehouse: there are pallets, racking and a sales rep. **And yet when someone asks about that product, they ask you** — because you are the first link in the chain within their reach. Whoever made it is far away, in another jurisdiction and, very often, in another time zone with a different contact every six months.
When the question arrives, and what answering it depends on
| When | Who asks | What decides whether you can answer |
|---|---|---|
| Before selling | A large customer | What you asked the supplier for when buying |
| On arrival | The border | What travels with the shipment |
| Months later | A customer or a review | What you kept about that specific shipment |
| **Years later** | **A claim** | **Whether the supplier still exists and replies** |
Important
**The only moment you have leverage to demand documentation from your supplier is before you pay.** After that you are one more customer sending emails. Anything not asked for in the purchase order —the technical documentation, who signs it, in what language, how long it is retained, who to write to when their sales contact changes— is something you will later negotiate from a far weaker position, or reconstruct without them.
What to hold per reference, not per supplier
- 1
What documentation covers that specific reference
Not the whole catalogue: catalogues change and so do references.
- 2
Which shipments it applies to
A document without a batch or a date cannot answer about a specific shipment.
- 3
Who issued it and how to reach them again
A person and an email, not just a company name.
- 4
And when it expires or is superseded
New versions do not announce that they have made the old one obsolete.
Watch out
The costliest failure in this position: **filing documentation by supplier rather than by reference and shipment**. It works while you sell three things. The day a claim lands on a product sold two years ago, the question is not «what did this supplier send me?» but «what exactly covered what went out in that shipment?», and those two questions diverge the moment the supplier changed something along the way — which is the norm.
Worth knowing
What responsibilities fall on whoever places a product on a market, what documentation must be producible, for how long and in what language **depends on the product and the market, and is settled by your adviser or the relevant body**. Here we cover the part that decides whether you can produce it: what you asked for, which shipment it belongs to, and whether you can find it two years on.
›Is the documentation on the supplier's website enough?
To trade, perhaps. To answer about a shipment from two years ago, no: it changes without notice.
›Do I need it translated?
It depends on the market and the product. Ask before buying, not after selling.
›What if the supplier ceases to exist?
Then you have only what you kept. That is the whole argument for keeping it well.
A real case
The situation
A large customer asks for the technical documentation of a specific reference.
What you do
- Files documentation against the reference rather than the supplier
What you get
What is handed over covers the product sold, not the catalogue.
The situation
A claim arrives about a product sold two years ago.
What you do
- Keeps which document covered each shipment and from when
What you get
The answer uses what covered it then, not what is current now.
The situation
The supplier issues a new version and nobody notices until there is a problem.
What you do
- Keeps each version with its date instead of overwriting it
What you get
The old version stays available for what was sold under it.
The situation
Chasing documentation from the supplier costs weeks of email.
What you do
- Sends the request and chases on its own until it arrives
What you get
Follow-up stops occupying a person.
The situation
Documents arrive in several languages and formats per reference.
What you do
- Gathers everything for one reference in a single file
What you get
What is there and what is missing is visible at once.
The situation
The supplier's contact changes and nobody knows who to write to.
What you do
- Records who issued each document and how to reach them
What you get
The next request does not start by hunting for a contact.
This article answers
- technical documentation for an imported product
- asked for papers on a product i do not make
- what to keep from a non-eu supplier
- declaration of conformity for imported goods