4 steps
Verification checklist
6 red flags
When to walk away
from $270
Factory inspection
The most expensive losses in China sourcing are not in logistics — logistics can be calculated. What costs money is the supplier: an intermediary posing as a factory, quality that does not match the sample, full prepayment with no leverage. Here is how to check a Chinese company before the money moves.
Step 1. Does the company exist
Check against the Chinese legal name of the company, not the shop name on the platform — they are different things. What to look at: registration validity, export licence, years in operation, ownership, and whether the company appears on problem registers. The data is in Chinese state registers, but you have to search in Chinese.
Red flag: the seller avoids giving the legal company name and asks for payment to a personal account.
Step 2. Factory or intermediary
Many sellers on 1688 and Alibaba present themselves as manufacturers and turn out to be trading companies. The practical difference: an intermediary adds 5–20% and cannot answer for quality, because it does not control it. A factory gives better pricing at volume and can modify the product for you.
How to tell: a manufacturer's licence lists production-related activities, the product range is narrow and consistent, and the address is an industrial zone rather than an office tower. A call and, when it matters, a visit settles it.
Step 3. Reputation and shipping history
Years in operation, order volumes, and what Chinese buyers write — their reviews are more informative than international ones, because there are more of them and they are specific. Look separately at whether there were disputes and how they ended.
Step 4. Sample and on-site check
Order a sample even at an absurd unit price: it shows whether the factory can actually make what it promises. A visit to the production — photos and video of the workshop, equipment and warehouse — answers whether the production exists at all.
A factory inspection starts at $270. Against the value of a batch that is nothing, and it is the only way to check the operation rather than the presentation.
Six reasons not to start
- Demands 100% prepayment and refuses inspection of the finished goods
- Price far below market for the same specification — the saving always comes from somewhere: material, thickness, what is in the box
- Asks for payment to a personal account instead of the company account
- Will not send photos of its own production, or sends images that turn up elsewhere in a reverse search
- Changes terms after the deposit: price, lead time, minimum order
- Company registered recently, with no shipping history
How to pay
Standard practice is a 30% deposit with the balance after inspection of the finished batch. This is not a buyer's whim, it is the norm: until the balance is paid, the supplier has a reason to fix defects or recalculate. After full payment and shipment there is almost no leverage left — returning goods from Bishkek to China makes no economic sense.
What we do
Our team is in China, so verification happens on the ground rather than by correspondence: we check the supplier in the registers, visit the production when needed, inspect the goods before shipping with a photo and video report, and pay the supplier in RMB from our own entity. From there the cargo moves by road — 10–23 days to Kyrgyzstan, 12–25 to Kazakhstan, 15–25 to Uzbekistan, 20–30 to Russia. Details on the supplier verification page.
Send us the weight, volume and pickup city on WhatsApp +996 700 11 1688 — we reply with a quote within an hour.
