Take Phthalates for instance, they are a class of widely used plasticizer, commonly in plastic and paints, about 15 kinds of phthalates material are considered as hazardous substances and many countries have passed law to restrict its use. Below is the regulation from the United States:

In August 2008, the United States Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which became public law 110-314. Section 108 of that law specified that as of 10 February 2009, “it shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture for sale, offer for sale, distribute in commerce, or import into the United States any children’s toy or child care article that contains concentrations of more than 0.1 percent of” DEHP, DBP, or BBP and “it shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture for sale, offer for sale, distribute in commerce, or import into the United States any children’s toy that can be placed in a child’s mouth or child care article that contains concentrations of more than 0.1 percent of” DINP, DIDP.

How about our products at this point? Recently, we take a test for our most salable and massive production product! The final report is as following:

This is our inspection report of the general student violin (VG106), authorized by Jiangsu Entry-Exit Inspection And Quarantine Bureau. In fact, we guarantee that all paints in our production process are safe due to our improved supply chain management system. As usual, our vision is to provide better quality products for improving people’s life. This is not only at quality of products but also at quality of ecological environments! Let us continue this effort…

Nowadays there are so many B2B and B2C brokers to call us everyday. They try to sell their service to every potential client! It seems that your company doesn’t have this, you will be out! What is really meaning of B2B or B2C? What can we do in such new E-business environment? I reflected my studying which I have done 6 years before and copied part of it as following. I do like to share with people who really want to adopt E-business mechanism on his business strategy. Here is the first part.

Influences on Marketing Strategy

Although Porter (2001) claims that there is not a new economy but an old economy with access to a “new technology”, he still admits “Internet technology provides buyers with easier access to information about products and suppliers, thus bolstering buyer bargaining power.” In fact, Kotler(2003:40) concludes that “the advent of Internet has greatly increased the ability of companies to conduct their business faster, more accurately, over a wide range of time and space, at reduced cost, and with the ability to customize and personalize customer offerings.” For better understanding of this statement, in an alternative way, Chaston(2004) summarizes the developing route of modern marketing as being from mass marketing to one-to-one marketing. He explains, mass marketing relies on knowledge to understand and satisfy customer needs. This knowledge is a means “to be able to exploit the economies of scale associated with mass production to generate high absolute profits by selling large volume of low margin goods.”(Chaston, 2004:23) However, the IT evolution changed the situation. Chaston(2004) claims that in the Internet age mass marketing will be “given to the idea of product or service customization”, as “when customer began to log on to order goods they were asked to provide detailed information about themselves. It did not take long before new software systems began to read this information and offer the supplier an ability to make a customized response next time the customer came back.”(Chaston, 2004:41)

Actually, when discussing the influences of Internet technology on E-business, Kalakota et al. (1997) consolidated a range of different perspectives below:
 A communication perspective- the delivery of information, products/ services or payment by electronic means
 A business process perspective- the application of technology towards the automation of business transactions and workflows.
 A service perspective- enable cost cutting at the same time as increasing the speed and quality of service delivery.
 An online perspective – the buying and selling of products and information online.
All these should be regarded as basic marketing strategic viewpoints under the current E-business setting.

Furthermore, Chaffey et al.(2000) define the new term “Internet Marketing” or “E-marketing” as “the application of the Internet and related digital technologies to achieve marketing objectives”. And they point out that the outstanding issue should be to focus on new media marketing communication.(See Figure 3.6) This is confirmed by Sahay et al.(1998), who say “new interactive media (NIM) such as the Internet have the potential to transform the buying and selling of goods and services, with important strategic implications for all businesses.” Thus, “recognizing the differences between the Internet and other media is important to achieve success in channel promotion and channel satisfaction, and will lead in turn to positive channel outcomes and profitability.”(Chaffey, 2002)
Figure 3.6: Summary of Communication Models for a) Traditional Media b) New Media

Source: Chaffey (2002)

To sum up, although there are different influences from the Internet on the new classification of so-called “bit-based” and “atom-based” product markets (Sahay et al.,1998), basically business success still depends on the value recognized by the customer. So from the study handled by Sahay et al.(1998), the conclusion might be that in the E-business environment, providing quality customer service will finally determine the success of any new or old marketing strategy, this means that the customer-oriented approach is highlighted again in E-business.

Providing client with the best price is not good enough for us, we also try to offer good after-sales service. In practice, our quality guarantee policy is quite friendly! Basically, we ask our client to contact us within three months from the date they receive our goods. Also, clients should give us an inspection report, take some photos, and show us the evidence when the problem happens. When we get these documents, we would check. As long as we get agreement with clients and recognize it as quality issue, we will give our clients discount, provide spare parts, credit repairing cost or make replacement and so on. The bottom line will be that we try to help our clients make money through our products not take any troubles for them! 

Warranty Information

Please read this in its entirety. The terms and conditions listed here will govern all warranty claims for Aileen Music products. All these terms and conditions should be generally accepted and adopted by musical industry!

Aileen Music warrants its instruments to be free of defect in material and construction, workmanship for one year from the date of delivery from

1）Warranty does not cover strings.

2）Warranty on pegs, chinrests，endpins and tailpieces is expressly limited to six months. Bridges are covered by warranty for a period of three months. 

3）Damage caused by neglect or misuse of instrument is not covered. Please note that exposure to excessive heat, cold, dryness, or moisture is considered neglect. 4） Warranty is void if any repair or attempt to repair instrument by customer or by an unauthorized repair person has been made.5） Normal wear caused by normal use of items is not covered by this warranty.

6） Please note that openings in an instrument’s seams are common. It is because of the nature of wood and its reactions to seasonal changes. To avoid seam openings or cracks caused by extreme or sudden changes in temperature or humidity, please protect your instrument by maintaining humidity levels between 40% and 70%, and do not expose your instrument to temperatures above or below those.

7）Tone is based on the subjective perception of the listener. Being this case, it cannot be guaranteed.

Bows:

Hair is not covered by warranty, except for its installation. (In other words, if a bow’s original hair falls out, that is covered.) Damage caused by neglect or misuse of bows is not covered. Damage caused by normal wear is not covered. Warranty is void if any repair or attempt to repair bow by customer or by an unauthorized repair person has been made. Wooden bows react to changes in temperature and humidity. One common result of exposure to extremes of temperature or humidity is warpage.  Aileen Music warranty does not cover warpage. Please also note that bows left tight for long periods of time are likely to warp. To protect your bow from warping, always be sure to loosen it after playing.  Carbon Fiber bows; fiberglass and carbon composite bows are warranted for one year.  The finish of these bows is not covered by warranty.

Cases:

Warranty applies only for one year from the date of delivery. Damage caused by either normal wear, or by misuse or neglect is not covered.

Wind Instruments:

WHAT IS COVERED: This warranty covers the above products against defects in materials or workmanship.

WHAT IS NOT COVERED: This warranty does not cover (a) damage, deterioration or malfunction resulting from accident, negligence, misuse, abuse, operation or failure to follow instructions contained in your Owner’s Manual; any shipment of the product (Claims must be presented to the carrier); (b) deterioration by reason of perspiration, corrosive atmosphere, or other external causes such as extremes in temperature or humidity; (c) springs, pads and felt parts 

In short, above warranty information does not cover all our products. We will continuously collect other information and make it completely! It is sure we will provide warranty for all our products, whatever mentioned or not mentioned above. For all our products, bottom rule will be: Aileen music will try our best to satisfy the clients, even client’s customers. Any quality issue mentioned by our clients will be paid great attention!

l        EXW: EXW EX works. The buyer pays for all the freight costs and inland costs under this payment term. The container loads the goods from the seller’s factory directly.

l        FOB：Free On Board. The buyer uses their own shipping agency and pays for the freight costs.  

l        CFR: Cost and Freight. This payment term is used mainly for air and express shipment.

l        CIF: Cost, Insurance and Freight. The seller finds the shipping agency and pays for the freight cost. Usually our company will also suggest the client insure for their goods for the sea shipments. 

In practice, most of the foreign trade companies like to quote in CIF term after they receive an enquiry. The advantage of CIF quotation is very obvious: the client can know the cost of every item he ordered clearly. The disadvantage of a quotation in CIF term is disputable at beginning stage. In theory, the price for different place will be different due to the different freight cost. If the client doesn’t offer the quantity of the goods he ordered, the salesman couldn’t know the exact volume of the order. Then, they can not know whether they should calculate freight cost in the basis of LCL or full container. It is obvious that the freight cost rate for LCL and full container is different. Normally the salesman will take the higher cost quoted to the client to safe his business. To some extent, the buyers will loss the cost advantage in this quotation manner.  

Currently, our quotation system is basing on FOB term. Once the client starts a new order discussion with us, we will only provide price in FOB term first. Once the clients finalize the quantity of each item, we will calculate accurate freight cost and insurance fee for them in light of their definite order. The pattern of the Proforma Invoice(P/I) is FOB price of goods plus freight cost plus insurance cost. Also, we will confirm the freight and insurance cost again with our clients just before the shipping date. This will help our client to get the actual cost of the freight and insurance during different seasons. Of course, in this manner it is a little difficult for a new buyer to get complete picture for the cost at our first round quotation. From this viewpoint, comparing to CIF quotation, the FOB quotation is more cost effective. There is no space for margin from freight and insurance. However, it leads to more workload and needs more customer-oriented mindset. If the client has his own shipping agency, FOB price is the best choice.  

 For the FCL shipments, the shipping companies we worked with regularly are:

MAERSK, http://www.maerskline.com/appmanager/ MSC, http://www.mscgva.ch/ COSCO, http://www.cosco.com/en/index.jsp 

HANJIN, http://www.hanjin.com/cn/main.html

YM, http://www.yml.com.tw/index.asp

ZIM, http://www.zim.co.il/

CSCL, http://www.chinashipping.com.cn/

EMC, http://www.evergreen-marine.com/tw/ CMA-CGM, http://www.cma-cgm.com/  Generally speaking, if the client doesn’t have special request, we will choose the vessel which is the most close to our delivery time. If the client wants to use particular vessel, we can also find it for him. All we do is to provide the best service for our clients.  

For LCL and air shipments, the shipping agencies which we worked with are as following:

Shanghai Amass Freight Int’l Co., Ltd. http://www.amassfreight.com/

Eurasia International Group, http://www.eurasia-intl.com/ 

JHJ International transportation Co.,Ltd. http://www.jhj.com.cn

YICHENG Logistics, http://www.yicheng-logistics.com/ 

FEIYI AIR CARGO, http://www.fr-solutions.com/index.asp

The freight of shipping in international business practice mainly is related to the season. Normally, there are three peak seasons during the time of a year:

l          From the 1^st of Apr. to the end of Jun. is the first busy period

l          From July.01 to the end of Sept. is the second peak season

l          From Oct.01 to the end of Nov. is the third crazy busy time.

The trend of freight during a year will be: the quotation in December is same as November and then it becomes lower until next March. The lowest price is always happened every February or March. However, the seasonal effects for the line to United States and Canada are different from others. Usually, the peak season of these two countries happen from every Oct.

According to our experience, the changing rate of freight from off-season to peak season will be: 

l          The increasing rate of European line is about USD75-150/20’GP, USD150-300/40’GP&HQ。

l          The increasing rate of USA line is about USD250-300/20’GP,USD600-700/40’GP&HQ。

l          The increasing rate of South America line is about USD300-350/20’GP,USD600-650/40’GP&HQ.

l          The increasing rate of Middle East line is about USD50-150/20’GP,USD100~250/40′GP&HQ。

l          The increasing rate of Southeast Asian line is about USD50/20’GP,USD50/40′GP&HQ 

The shipping price is also influenced by economic situation, political issue, the cost of fuel and so on. There were no rules in the shipping market form the second half of 2008 due to the global financial crisis. At the beginning of 2009, international transaction trends to weak. There were less products shipped among different countries, at least people believe this would be happened. Consequently, the shipping prices felled down straightly. Almost all shipping companies operated at a side of negative margin. In order to avoid the further losses, many shipping companies cut down the operation of booking shipping spaces separately and trend to share the same ship together. This practice directly leads to the fluctuant quotation. Of course, severe competition exacerbated this situation. Accordingly, the service quality went down greatly. In 2009, the most status might be: the shipping space was very tight. Some shipping companies even overtook orders first and then broke their promise afterward. Being seller, we only can try to make reservation in advance and work with our long-term partner to avoid the dangers of rejection. This was really hard time for everyone!

The peak season by air is generally starting from July to Nov. The capacity of air shipping is far lower than vessel transportation, so the price of airplane changes every week during the peak season. Sometimes, the freight can be double of normal price. Also, due to the limited capacity, usually we book space 2-3 days in advance. Nowadays we need make a reservation one week in advance in 2009’s peak season. There is no guarantee of reservation or lower price in the peak season in 2009. Many goods stood on the line for air transportation over weeks.  

In our experience, the service quality in transportation market, whatever by sea or by ship, is related to the cost. Higher price leads to high standard service and safer shipping than that of cheaper price. Therefore, we must consider all aspects carefully before we make final offer. We should think about schedule, port of discharge, destination before we chose a shipping company. We should ensure safe and on-time shipping. Finally, we should balance the cost and service and risk. In short, we try to use our knowledge and professionalism to provide better service for our clients.

Hi! Can you tell me more about the Grand Auditorium(GA) build? Are the back and side made of a composite of rosewood, carbon fiber or just plain Rosewood? Is the top a composite or a straight wood? Does the arch back have carbon-fiber x bracing within the laminate. I believe the back and side have no bracing at all. Does the top have any bracing and if so of what style. Is the construction modeled on any other makers construction techniques, new or historical. Is the design based on a particular style or type of guitar. I have an old Moondog GA one and its a great guitar. The new cutaway is fabulous as are the cases. What strings are you putting on in the factory? They seem pretty good. Is the neck wider than the original or does the brass nut pinch them together? Again it is a good feature. On one of my old spirits the top E is so close to the edge that it often slips over and catches on a fret.

I have looked much more closely at them now. They are still lovely but there are some small finish details that could be improved. There are some very light scratches on some of the guitars, like a slight scuff such as a very fine touch of sandpaper might make. The glue is a bit visible on the bottom edge of some of the bridges. A few tiny dents, some on the frets which have to be redressed and at least one very small crack in the varnish around a bridge. The B-band EQs on the spirit are excellent so far. This may sound like harsh criticism but you really have to look hard to see some of these minor issues. I thought you might like to know for your quality control. …Perhaps it is tight in the brass nut. They all look really good, especially the GAs. I am having one fitted with Shertler Bluestck just for me…

This is AFH131-AA-Grand Auditorium(GA).

This is AFM30-A-Spirit.

This is AFM30C-A-Spirit Cutaway.

   1890, suzuki built a new violin factory;

   1900, suzuki made first violin of small size;

   1914, suzuki factory already had 1000 workers;

   1916, the second factory had been opened;

   1918, the third factory had been opened;

   1930, SUZUKI VIOLIN CO., LTD became a world-renowned trading company.20 years of the last century, Dr. Albert Einstein in Germany highly praised SUZUKI VIOLIN and said, “I would like to play this violin all my life , and keep it forever as a family treasure .” 

With over 100 years of instrument making excellence and experience, SUZUKI has refined the process to perfection with unparalleled quality in materials, workmanship, tone and overall performance. The musical instruments are the wonderful conglomeration of gorgeous and pragmatic. They are more worth having. 

Nowadays, the latest action in SUZUKI VIOLIN is to enhance their brand at student level besides their high reputation in professional level. To serve this aggressive strategy, SUZUKI promoted two kinds of violins in the worldwide, which is made in China with their partner: NANJINA AILEEN TRADING CO., LTD. . The two suites entirely follow up strict Japanese tradition of craftsmanship but in cheaper price. It has great new sound and become the star product among SUZUKI VIOLIN family. They are suitable for the people who are brand hunter.   

Being the strategic global partner of SUZUKI VIOLIN, NANJING AILEEN TRADING CO., LTD. has put great efforts to improve the quality and optimize all logistics and after-sales service. The result was quite good till now. The two suits have been shipped to many countries, such as Korea, Italy, Thailand and Singapore. The consumer’s feedback was exciting for SUZUKI. 

Meanwhile, the advertising on The Music Trades for North American market has been on air. Furthermore, these two suites have been displayed in Music China 2009. In the near future, it will set off a higher wave of SUZUKI VIOLIN worldwide again.

l       Model: AFH131C-AA:

AFH131C-AA is Master grade acoustic guitar. This guitar is entirely hand-made at our small work-shop and we choose selected solid spruce top, ”AA” grade, which can give a bright, clear and well balanced sound.

The upgrading accessories for this model are obvious: brass nut, quality artificial ebony machine head, abalone rosette and so on, Because of special top structure, the sound quality of AFH131C-AA is fantastic and it can really be regarded as collector’s item in the acoustic guitar market.

Specification:

- Moondog Original Grand Auditorium model

- 40″ acoustic guitar,

- Selected Solid spruce top-AA grade

- Solid rosewood back & side,

- Ebony fingerboard & rosewood bridge

- Brass nut & bone saddle

- Quality artificial ebony machine head

- Beautiful maple binding

- Abalone rosette

- Special Top structure

- Arch back

l       Model: AFM30-A

Original AFM30 is a middle grade Moondog guitar, “OOO” model, Martin style headstock. This model is not being as good as AFH131C-AA on material and accessories, but it still has satisfied tone and quality. Its target customer is professional player or at least senior student. Considering its cost, it can be competed with any brand at this level.

Specification:

- Moondog original Spirit Model

- 40″ acoustic guitar, triple “O” style

- Solid spruce top,

- Rosewood plywood back & side,

- Rosewood fingerboard & bridge,

- Quality artificial ebony machine head,

- Beautiful maple binding

l       Model: AFM30C-AThe difference between AFM30C and AFM30 is only the cutaway structure. It provides more choice at this level.

Specification:

- Moondog Original Spirit Cutaway Model

- 40″ acoustic guitar, triple “O” style, cutaway,

- Solid spruce top,  

- Rosewood plywood back & side,

- Rosewood fingerboard & bridge,

- Quality artificial ebony machine head, 

- Beautiful maple binding

Here we provide some pictures to show the unique technique we used for above three models.

l       Special Top Structure:

l       Active Neck:

l       Special Varnish process: the varnish is made on the neck and body separately before these two parts were joined together.

l       Dove tail style joint between neck and body:

If you are player at certain level, it will take you great experience to play any of above three models. Of course, we will put more effort to improve them continuously! The perfectness is always an endless way!

Concord,

Lack of standardization in design means that one double bass can sound and look very different from another. In general, there are two major approaches to the design outline shape of the double bass, these being the violin form, and the viol da gamba form. A third less common design called the Busetto shape (and very rarely the guitar or pear shape) can also be found.

3/4-size model is the most commonly available size. Until the 1990s, child-sized double basses were not widely available. Now smaller-sized instruments, such as half (1/2), quarter(1/4) , eighth (1/8 ), tenth ( 1/10) and even sixteenth(1/16) became more widely available. Our factory not only can offer all the size above, but also 1/32-size. It’s our feature and will satisfy your requirement.

The back of the instrument can vary from being a round, carved back similar to that of the violin, or a flat and angled back similar to the viol family.

Double basses are constructed from several types of wood, including maple for the back, spruce for the top, and ebony for the fingerboard.

Double bass is very sensitive to changes in heat and humidity, which can cause cracks in spruce tops. Also, due to environment protection issue, it is really hard to find good top or back for this instruments. Nowadays more and more double bass are made with laminated top/back, especially for school market. Normally, people just buy veneer to make back and top. To have the arched shape, they used hot-press machine to make it. The problem of this structure is obvious. It will be much heavier than solid wood instruments. Also, with the changing surrounding situation and time, the arched shape might be twisted and back to flat. Furthermore, the most negative aspect is that the veneer stops the sound spreading. The sound quality is much lower than solid wood.

Nowadays, after several years hard working and reforming the process, we almost overcame all these problems technically through our unique making method. Our double bass is made with our special laminated top or back. The weight will be same or even less than solid wood. Meanwhile, we can keep almost 70%~ 85% of sound spreading just like through solid top or back. Of course, you never need to worry about cracks and the top/back rebounding at all. Some photos from our factory just for you reference.