Guides for people importing from China
The main written guides on this site, grouped by the situation that brings someone to it rather than by subject. All of it is free to read, and none of it is gated — no email, no form, no registration.
These are the written pages of this site — sourcing, supplier verification, quotes, duty, compliance and how a supply base is put together — from a trading company working in Guangdong.
They are grouped below by the situation that usually brings someone to them, because that is how people arrive: with a problem, not with a topic. Each entry says plainly what the page covers, so you can decide in a line whether it is about your problem.
Nothing here is gated. There is no email wall, no download form and no registration — open any of them and read. Several also say what we’d do about the problem if you wanted us to — openly, near the top, rather than buried at the end. Everything we do is quoted per request, in writing, before any work starts.
None of it is legal, customs or tax advice. Where a page rests on a rule or a rate that moves, it carries the date it was last updated and tells you to check your own position with your broker or adviser.
Something has already gone wrong
The money has moved and the answers have stopped.
Three pages for when the problem is already in front of you. None of them promises you a recovery.
Your supplier stopped replying
Deposit paid, replies stopped. The four situations this usually turns out to be, the five things worth doing before anything else, and what someone standing at the address can and cannot establish. It says outright that nobody can promise your deposit back.
Read more →How sourcing agents get paid
The three ways an intermediary is paid, and the fourth thing that isn’t a payment model at all. Published law-firm client matters showing concealed markup, why an inflated invoice now costs you twice at the border, and six questions to put to your own arrangement.
Read more →The factory raised the price mid-order
Deposit paid, production booked, and an email saying costs have moved. The four things this usually is, how to tell which one you are looking at, and the three questions that settle it without a row.
Read more →You haven’t ordered yet
Nothing is committed, and the whole shape of it is unfamiliar.
The process end to end, and the first structural decision — who you actually buy through.
China Sourcing Guide
The full arc of a first order — specification, supplier verification, samples, payment terms, pre-shipment inspection and shipping — plus the six mistakes that recur and a glossary of the terms you will meet on day one.
Read more →Why buy through a trading company
The case for buying through a transparent trading company, argued by one: seller of record, many factories instead of one, consolidation, QC that isn’t grading its own homework — and the conditions under which factory-direct genuinely is the better structure.
Read more →Before you commit to a supplier
You have a shortlist, or a quote, and no way to check either.
Eight ways to find out who you are dealing with and what you are agreeing to, while a bad answer still costs you an email rather than a container.
Verify a Chinese supplier on gsxt.gov.cn
How to look a company up on China’s official government registry in eight steps — status, business scope, registered capital, penalty and abnormal-operations lists — the five red flags, and an honest section on what registration cannot tell you.
Read more →MOQ too high?
Six routes importers actually use to bring a minimum down, and the one that costs least when the factory will not move.
Read more →Canton Fair 2026: phase dates and what goes wrong after
The 140th session runs 15 October to 4 November across three phases with a different catalogue in each. What is in each phase, the failure modes specific to that catalogue, and the two things worth doing in the weeks after you fly home.
Read more →Vetting suppliers you met at the fair
Why a trade-fair booth can confirm almost nothing about who manufactures, the five things that have to be checked afterwards — registry, facility, capacity, export history, certification — and why “unable to confirm” is reported as a result rather than rounded up to a pass.
Read more →Why three quotes aren’t comparable
The nine places quotes quietly differ — material grade, wall thickness, component origin, finish, inclusions, packaging, testing, tooling, Incoterm — and how to re-issue the request so the answers can be put side by side.
Read more →Verify Bolang
The same registry check, run on us: registered legal name, Unified Social Credit Code, address, a seven-step walkthrough, what a mismatch would mean — and a list of what this site does not publish about itself yet.
Read more →How to pay a Chinese supplier
What a bank transfer, a letter of credit and platform escrow each actually protect against — and the one-minute account-name check that catches the most common fraud in the trade.
Read more →What 30/70 payment terms actually protect
The split is not the point; the trigger is. Two orders on identical terms can carry completely different protection depending on one clause most purchase orders leave out.
Read more →Protecting what you designed
The tooling is paid for and the drawings are out of your hands.
Three pages on the part of sourcing that is decided before production and discovered afterwards. None of it is legal advice, and each says so.
NNN vs NDA in China
An NDA stops disclosure. It does not stop a factory using your design or selling around you to your customer. What the other two N’s add, and why language and jurisdiction decide whether any of it is enforceable.
Read more →Who owns the mould?
You paid the tooling charge. Whether that made the mould yours is a separate question, and it gets answered on the day you try to move factory. The four things to write down before the steel is cut.
Read more →Your factory is selling your product
You found your own design listed by someone else. What is actually actionable depends almost entirely on what was registered in China before production — including the uncomfortable answer when nothing was.
Read more →Getting the goods into your market
What it costs at the border, and what your market puts on you rather than the factory.
Each carries the date it was last checked, and each says plainly that it is not a substitute for your broker or adviser.
Tariffs and landed cost
Where the duty stack stands after the Section 122 surcharge lapsed on 24 July 2026 — what continued, what replaced it — the three places importers get the arithmetic wrong, and five levers that are real alongside two that aren’t.
Read more →EU compliance in 2026
PPWR, GPSR, packaging EPR and EUDR: which obligations attach to the importer rather than the supplier, which August date genuinely bites, and one widely repeated packaging deadline that, read against the article itself, does not exist.
Read more →GPSR, one year on
Who carries the Responsible Person obligation, what has to be on the label, and what a distributor has to check before listing.
Read more →EUDR for wood and paper
Which products are in scope, what due diligence actually requires, and the deadline that moves by company size.
Read more →ISPM-15 pallets from China
The four marks a pallet has to carry, where they have to appear, and what a rejection at the border costs you.
Read more →Importing to the UK
UKCA versus CE, import VAT and postponed accounting, and the EORI step people discover at the port.
Read more →EXW, FOB or DDP from China
Two quotes ten per cent apart are often the same price in different Incoterms. What each moves onto your side of the line — and why a cheap DDP number is the one to read twice.
Read more →HS codes and who is liable
The supplier put a code on the invoice. In most markets the liability for it being wrong is yours as importer of record, not theirs — including on entries already cleared.
Read more →FCL or LCL from China
LCL looks cheaper per cubic metre until the destination invoice arrives. Which charges do not scale with your volume, and how to compare the two on the same basis.
Read more →Selling it on Amazon
The goods are fine. The barcode is the problem.
Three pages on the part of an Amazon supply chain that is decided at the factory and paid for at the fulfilment centre.
Amazon prep from China
FNSKU, polybags and carton labels — three labels doing three different jobs. What to decide before the goods leave the factory, and why a prepped sample beats a written specification every time.
Read more →What Amazon rejects at receiving
The shipment arrived and then units went missing, were surcharged, or the delivery was refused. Where that cost lands by default, and the one paragraph in the purchase order that moves it.
Read more →Amazon landed cost
Your factory unit price is the smallest number in the stack. The fees added late — returns, removals, aged-inventory storage — are the ones that decide whether the product works.
Read more →Working out the route and the number
Which way to buy, and what it actually costs to buy that way.
Six comparisons and checklists. Each shows its working rather than asserting a conclusion.
Trading company vs factory
When buying factory-direct wins, when a trading company earns its margin, and how to tell which one you are actually talking to.
Read more →Sourcing agent vs Alibaba
One product, both routes, every cost line shown — including the ones the platform does not put in front of you.
Read more →A quote much cheaper than the rest
When one quote undercuts everyone else, one of five things is true. The checklist that tells you which — before the deposit finds out for you.
Read more →Your first import from China
The ten first-import mistakes that actually cost money — deposits, specifications, Incoterms, compliance — and the cheap habit that prevents each one.
Read more →The goods arrived wrong
The shipment does not match what you ordered. How to establish what was agreed, build the evidence, and choose between rework, discount and walking.
Read more →FBA prep in China vs the US
Prep at source or prep at destination? The per-unit comparison — labeling, poly-bagging, cartons and the freight leg you delete — line by line.
Read more →Risks you can see coming
Exposure built into how, where and when you buy.
None of these is an emergency yet, and all three are cheaper to deal with before they become one.
One supplier is a single point of failure
The four costs of a single factory, three of which apply while everything is still working — and the four situations where adding a second source costs more than the exposure it removes. Includes the case for changing nothing.
Read more →China + One
Whether moving production out pays for your category: why relocating assembly often doesn’t move the supply chain, the conditions that have to hold together, the five cases where the answer is no, and how to run a real dual-source trial. Written by a company in China, which says so.
Read more →After Chinese New Year
Why the weeks after the holiday are the riskiest production window on the calendar, how long the elevated risk tends to run, and the five decisions that have to be taken before the shutdown rather than after it.
Read more →Send us the
actual problem.
A quote, a supplier name, an address, a set of HS codes, a SKU list — whatever you have. We’ll tell you what we would do and what it would cost, in writing, before anything starts.