Sourcing in China
Supplier sourcing and verification in China
We find a manufacturer in China that matches your technical specification, verify it before you transfer the first yuan, and negotiate price on your behalf. We work on the ground: we run our own warehouses in Guangzhou, Beijing, Yiwu and Hong Kong, so supplier verification is not an exchange of emails but the work of people who can visit the plant and see what is actually installed there.
The hard part is not finding suppliers, it is filtering them
You can open 1688 or Alibaba and collect a hundred contacts for your product within an hour. The problems start after that: half of those hundred are trading companies with no production of their own, some work only for the domestic market and hold no export licence, and others quote a price they will revise after the first order.
Our job is to work through that list to the end and keep only those who can genuinely make your product in your volume, at your quality and within your deadline. What you receive is not a set of links but several verified options with prices, terms and our comment on why we selected them.
We handle sourcing end to end, from finding the factory to delivery at your warehouse. If the goods ship through us, supplier sourcing is free of charge.
Factory or trading company: the key question
| Factory | Trading company | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Lower: production cost plus the manufacturer's margin | Higher by the intermediary's mark-up |
| Minimum order quantity | Higher | Lower, small volumes are possible |
| Changes to the product | Material, colour and design can be changed | Only what is already in production |
| Quality control | You can influence the process before shipment | No influence over production |
| Branding, OEM | Yes | Rarely, and at a higher cost |
A trading company is not automatically a bad choice: for small volumes it is often the only realistic option, because a factory will not run such a batch. We always state plainly in the report who you are dealing with. The decision is then yours: sometimes the faster and cheaper route is precisely through an intermediary.
What we check before making a recommendation
- Legal status. Business licence, registration date, registered capital, actual line of business according to Chinese registers. A company registered three months ago for your volume is a separate conversation.
- Export rights. Whether the supplier can ship abroad and issue an export declaration. If it cannot, that is not a reason to walk away: we prepare the Chinese export declaration ourselves, even when you have no documents for the cargo.
- Production capacity. What is actually installed in the workshop, how many lines there are, the monthly output, and whether they subcontract your order.
- Sample. We order a sample to our warehouse in China, photograph it and, if required, send it to you in Ukraine.
- Track record. Complaints, court cases, how long the company has been on the platform, and who it has worked with before.
Price negotiations: what actually moves
The first price on a platform is almost never final. In negotiations we work with more than the unit price, because it is often cheaper to take cost out elsewhere:
- price for a larger batch or for regular shipments;
- payment terms: the size of the advance payment and what is paid after shipment;
- packaging: the factory box often does not survive 70 days at sea, and it is better to agree on this while price is being set than to repack later;
- production lead time and fixing it in the order;
- scope of supply: what is included in the price and what the supplier treats as a separate line item.
We negotiate in Chinese, from the Chinese side, without an interpreter in the middle. That removes the most expensive misunderstandings, the ones that surface only after shipment.
How we work
You describe the product
What it is, the volume, target price, quality requirements and links to comparable items.
We go to the market
We draft the technical specification in Chinese and gather a broad list of manufacturers against it.
Shortlist
We provide verified options with prices and terms, plus a comment on who you are dealing with: a factory or a trading company.
We verify the chosen supplier
Documents, capacity, reputation, export rights.
Sample
We order a sample to our warehouse in China, photograph it and, if required, send it to Ukraine.
Negotiations
We fix price, payment terms, packaging and production lead time in the order.
Purchase and delivery
We buy the goods, receive them at the warehouse, inspect them and ship them within the transit time of the chosen mode.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Quote · free of charge
Describe the product and we will find who to buy it from
Tell us what you need, in what volume and what target price you have in mind. We will come back with a list of verified suppliers and calculate straight away what it will cost to bring these goods to Ukraine.