Finding a supplier in China is not difficult. Finding one that is still shipping you the same quality on the tenth order is the real job, and that is where most sellers come unstuck.
This guide covers where to look, how to read what you find, the questions that separate a maker from a middleman, and how to pay without exposure.
Where to look
Alibaba is the obvious starting point and a reasonable one. International, English, and its escrow service holds your payment until you confirm the goods arrived as agreed. Expect minimum order quantities.
Made-in-China and Global Sources are directories rather than shops. Fewer listings aimed at beginners and a higher proportion of genuine manufacturers, but no escrow and no marketplace protection.
1688 is the domestic Chinese wholesale platform, with the lowest prices because it never expected a foreign buyer. Chinese language, Chinese account, Chinese address. Most overseas sellers reach it through an agent. The full comparison of platforms is in AliExpress alternatives.
Trade shows, above all the Canton Fair, remain the fastest way to meet many manufacturers in a short time if you can travel. The platforms worth searching first are compared in Chinese wholesale websites.
Competitors’ parcels. Buy the product you want to sell from somebody already selling it. The packaging, the labels and sometimes the shipping documents tell you a great deal about where it came from.
Factory or trading company
Most listings that look like factories are trading companies. That is not automatically a problem. A good trading company manages several factories, handles export paperwork competently and will take an order smaller than a factory would. A bad one is a markup and a broken telephone.
What matters is knowing which you are dealing with. Three signals:
The breadth of the catalogue. A factory owns particular machines, so it makes a narrow range of related things. A supplier offering dog beds, phone cases and kitchen scales is not making all three.
How technical questions land. Ask about the material specification, the thickness, the stitch count, the type of plastic. A factory answers from knowledge. A trader goes away and comes back, and the delay is visible.
Photographs on request. Ask for pictures of the line making your product, not the stock images in the listing. It is a reasonable request and the response is informative either way.
The questions worth asking
You are testing their answers, not collecting information.
“What is the real minimum order for this, and what changes at each quantity?” A straight answer means they have done this. A vague one means they are hoping to sort it out later. Our own answer on minimums is on the China sourcing agent page.
“What is the defect rate on this product and what are the usual defects?” Every product has some. A supplier who says none has either never checked or will not tell you.
“What happens if a batch is wrong?” Listen for whether there is a process or an improvisation.
“Can I have a sample of this exact specification?” The answer should be yes, you pay, and it arrives. Reluctance here is the clearest warning sign in the whole conversation.
“Who else do you export to and to which countries?” You are not checking references so much as checking whether the answer is specific.
Sampling, properly
Order the sample. Pay for it. Do not let a promised free sample delay you, because free samples arrive slowly and are often the best unit in the building.
When it arrives, check it against what you were told, not against what you hoped. Measure it. Wash it, load it, drop it, whatever the product will actually endure in a customer’s hands. Photograph it from every side, because that record is your evidence when the bulk order does not match.
If you can, order the same product from two suppliers at once. The comparison teaches you more than either sample alone.
Paying without exposure
Use a method that leaves a record. Platform escrow is the safest starting point because it holds the money until you confirm. Bank transfer is normal for larger orders with a supplier you have dealt with before.
Two warnings worth taking seriously. Be wary when a supplier asks you to pay a personal account rather than a company account. And be wary of a price far below everyone else, because in manufacturing it almost always means a different material or a different quality grade, not a better deal.
The part that actually goes wrong
Nearly everybody focuses on finding the supplier and almost nobody plans for the consistency problem.
The first order is excellent. The supplier is paying attention, they want the relationship, and the sample was picked carefully. Somewhere between the third and the tenth order, a material gets substituted, a subcontractor gets used, or the person who knew your order leaves.
You find out through customer complaints, which is the most expensive way to find out anything.
The only real protection is someone checking the goods before they ship rather than after. That can be an inspection company, it can be an agent, or it can be you on a plane. It cannot be a promise in an email.
Where an agent fits
An agent does the search, the vetting and the checking on your behalf, in the same country, language and time zone as the factory. That is the whole proposition, and it is worth paying for when you value your time more than the difference in price.
It is not compulsory. For a simple product with a reliable supplier, doing it yourself works and plenty of people do.
If you would rather hand it over, that is what we do, and the China sourcing agent page explains how, including what we charge, which is nothing on top of the quoted price. The questions to ask us, and any other agent, are in how to choose a dropshipping agent.