Field notes
Supplier concentration checks before you renew a consumer goods contract
Concentration rarely announces itself. It accumulates across quiet renewals until a factory outage or a corridor delay stops an entire shelf set.
Pull the last eight shipments for the category and list origin country, factory code, and forwarder. If more than seventy percent of volume sits with one factory, treat renewal talks as a diversification conversation rather than a price conversation alone.
Ask the supplier which other Vietnamese importers they already serve in the same category. Overlap is normal; total silence on that question is not. Pair the answer with publicly visible export patterns from that origin to Vietnam for similar HS codes.
Document an alternate origin that can meet labelling and packaging rules within ninety days. You may never use it. Having the name, sample lead time, and a rough freight path is the difference between a pause and a scramble when the primary line stalls.