There is one structural fact that shapes everything about how we work: we never take ownership of your goods. Our fee is stated separately from the unit price, which means you can always see what the factory charged.
What we do
We are a China sourcing agent. Overseas importers send us a product specification; we find and verify the factories that can make it, negotiate on your instructions, inspect the goods before they ship, and move them to your door.
That covers four things in practice: supplier identification and verification, price negotiation and sample management, quality inspection and factory audits, and export logistics and shipping coordination. Most projects use all four. Some clients come to us for inspection alone, on suppliers they already have.
Why the ownership question matters
Much of what calls itself a sourcing agent is a trading company. A trading company buys the goods and resells them to you — its margin sits inside the unit price, and you usually never learn who actually made the product. There is nothing improper about that model, but it is a different business, and it produces a different incentive.
An agent charges a stated fee for work performed. If the factory price drops, you keep the difference. If a supplier turns out to be unsuitable, we have no inventory position pushing us to recommend it anyway. Ask any prospective agent whether it takes title to your goods — the answer tells you more than the fee schedule does.
Where we work
Chinese manufacturing concentrates hard by category, and being in the wrong city is more expensive than paying the wrong price. We work on the ground in five markets:
| Yiwu | Small commodities — the largest wholesale market in the world for low-value, high-variety goods. |
| Guangzhou | Garments, accessories, and the Canton Fair. |
| Shenzhen | Electronics and electronic accessories. |
| Foshan | Furniture and building materials. |
| Ningbo | Export logistics, consolidation and freight. |
How the commercial terms work
| 5% | Commission on order value, stated as its own line beside the factory invoice rather than folded into the unit price. |
| 0 | Markup added to the factory invoice. We never take title to your goods, so a lower factory price is entirely yours. |
| 5 | Sourcing hubs with people on the ground, not agents-of-agents. |
| 24h | From enquiry to a tailored sourcing plan, on working days. |
How we are set up to work
- One dedicated account manager per project. The same named person from first enquiry to delivery. You are not re-explaining the specification to a new inbox each week.
- Documents, not assurances. Factory audits and pre-shipment inspections are delivered as written reports with findings, not as a message saying it went fine.
- Transparent pricing. The fee structure is agreed before work begins, and no charges appear later that were not in the original quotation.
- Findings reach you while they are still fixable. Inspection happens before release, which is the last point at which a quality problem is still the factory's problem.
How we show our work
Sourcing is full of numbers that cannot be checked. A quoted saving, a promised lead time, a claimed defect rate — you are usually asked to take them on trust, and by the time you can test them the container has shipped.
We would rather publish the arithmetic. Our worked examples take a real product category, real wholesale prices and a real tariff classification, and follow the cost through to a delivered unit — every assumption stated, every rate sourced and dated. Our cost pages do the same by category, and where we do not yet have enough data to publish a range, we say so rather than printing a number we cannot stand behind.
The point is that you can disagree with us in specifics. If our freight assumption is wrong for your product, you can see exactly which line to change. That is a more useful thing to hand a buyer than a percentage with no working.
What we refuse
Counterfeits, weapons, controlled substances and sanctioned goods, among others. The full list is published in what we will not source — an agent who will source anything is telling you something about how it verifies suppliers.
What we will tell you honestly
Not every buyer needs an agent. If you are running large repeat volumes with a supplier you have used for years and already have inspection and freight arrangements you trust, our fee buys you very little. We will say so.
An agent earns its keep when you are entering a new category, coordinating several factories into one shipment, or carrying quality risk you cannot personally inspect. That is the work we are built for.
