What to Check Before Choosing a Chinese Supplier

Supplier selection determines most of your sourcing risk. Here is the practical checklist we work through before recommending any manufacturer to a client.

Supplier selection is where sourcing risk concentrates. A good product from an unreliable supplier is still a bad order. This is the checklist we work through before recommending any manufacturer.

Business legitimacy

Start with the basics, because they are quick and they eliminate a surprising number of candidates.

• A valid business licence, with a registered scope that actually covers your product
• Registered capital and years in operation
• A verifiable company address rather than only a mobile number and a chat account
• Export experience, and ideally experience exporting to South Asian markets

Factory or trading company

Ask plainly and check the answer against evidence. A factory should be able to describe its production lines, machine count and monthly capacity without hesitation. A trading company that is honest about being one is often a better partner than a trading company pretending to be a factory.

Production capability

The question is not whether they can make your product. It is whether they can make your quantity, to your specification, in your timeframe, repeatedly.

• Monthly production capacity against your expected volume
• In-house processes versus outsourced steps
• Quality control staff and documented inspection procedure
• Ability to handle your customisation: printing, moulding, packaging

Communication quality

This is underrated and highly predictive. A supplier who answers technical questions precisely, flags problems early and responds within a working day will be far easier to work with when something goes wrong — and eventually, something goes wrong.

Watch for the pattern of vague answers to specific questions. It rarely improves after the deposit is paid.

Commercial terms

• Minimum order quantity, and price breaks at higher volumes
• Payment terms — a deposit with the balance against shipping documents or after inspection is normal; full payment upfront to a new supplier is not
• Sample cost and sample lead time
• Written warranty or defect-handling policy

Red flags worth walking away from

• Prices dramatically below every other quotation for the same specification
• Refusal to provide a business licence or allow any form of verification
• Pressure to pay quickly to a personal account rather than a company account
• Reluctance to produce a pre-production sample
• Specification that keeps changing between quotation and order confirmation

Verification is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the difference between a supplier relationship that compounds in value over several years and a single order that costs you a season.