A practical guide for international buyers.
Ten suppliers can quote your product; one can actually build it. Here is how to tell them apart before money moves.
Products concentrate in industrial clusters — lighting in Zhongshan, textiles in Shaoxing, toys in Chenghai. A supplier inside the right cluster buys components cheaper and knows your category's failure modes.
Check the registered scope covers your product, the registered capital is credible for your order size, and the legal name on the licence matches the bank account that will receive your deposit.
Neither is "bad" — but a trading company quoting factory prices adds a margin you cannot see. Ask for photos of the production floor for your product, not a showroom tour.
A one-day supplier audit checks the quality system, real capacity and the order book. It costs a fraction of one bad shipment and answers what certificates cannot: who will actually make your goods.
Approve a golden sample and reference it in the contract. A sample that "looks fine" without a written checklist is how disputes start six weeks later.
Place a pilot order with a during-production check, not a full-season order on trust. If the pilot's report is clean, scale with confidence; if not, you found out for the price of one man-day.
CGF sources and screens suppliers on the ground — no factory commissions, ranked by evidence. Or audit the factory you already found.