Zhongshan bosses collectively complained that after the goods are shipped, it takes three months for the money to arrive, and in the meantime, they have to borrow money to pay the workers' wages.
Lamp factories, hardware factories, and small appliance factories are all the same; when customers say 'industry practice,' they extend the payment period to ninety days or more.
If you don't accept long payment periods, you won't get orders; if you do accept them, the interest eats away at the profits, making it increasingly feel like working for the bank.
Now the city has set up a platform to allow large enterprises to 'confirm immediate payment.' The first batch of twenty pilot companies has increased the speed of payment collection by forty percent, but most buyers are still observing.
Small business owners say that if they are not given a way out, they will have to shut down their machines and disperse their workers.
The pressure from the payment terms is crushing not just factories, but the entire manufacturing ecosystem.
Whoever pays first is the one who saves others.
