Order something in China

I asked our secretary to get me two boxes to store samples in. I showed the size and where is should be. She understood and called a company selling plastic boxes. But... Instead of having a catalogue or web page where you can choose, a guy showed up with what they though we wanted. It was not what we were looking for. So we described again what we wanted. The next day they came again with another suggestion, nor this was what we needed so he went back again and showed up later that afternoon with a box that is something like we want. But why this lengthy procedure? It is the same when we try to get hold a back clip to catalogue we are doing. They show up with an example, but it's not what we want and they don't have anything else with them for us to choose between...