Williams Loft, a distributor of mattress products, ran the recent survey. The company sent out requests for quotation (RFQ) to twelve suppliers in China. Each was given the exact same set of specifications. The company did nothing with the quotes, but went back to the same factories six weeks later. On the follow-up, they mentioned in passing that they would be verifying quality through a testing agency. Guess what the impact was of mentioning a third-party tester: Ten out of twelve factories immediately moved to raise prices by an average of 20%. Why would a factory raise its prices after learning that customer would be checking quality?

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Very interesting.  So, you say you want a product?  OK, here's the price.  Oh, you mean you want a product that doesn't break, and you'll have someone in my factory verifying it?  That will be more expensive...