Do you take ownership of the goods?
No. Goods are bought on your account, the factory invoice is visible to you, and our fee sits beside it as a separate line. A trading company presenting itself as an agent buys your goods and resells them, so its margin lives inside the unit price where you cannot audit it. Ours cannot, because the fee is the only thing we earn.
Will I see the factory price, or only your price?
You see the factory invoice. That is the point of the structure: a lower factory price is entirely yours, and we have no incentive to steer you toward a supplier who pays us more, because none of them pay us anything. Ask any agent you are comparing us against to put the same answer in writing.
Is 5% high or low for a China sourcing agent?
Published rates across the industry usually sit between 5% and 10%, with larger orders negotiated lower. The more useful question is not the percentage but where the rest of the margin is: an agent quoting 3% while marking up the factory invoice costs you more than one quoting 5% against a price you can see. Compare the total landed cost, not the rate.
What does the commission actually cover?
Supplier identification and verification, negotiation and order placement, production follow-up, and shipping coordination. The flat project fee covers the same scope, with that scope fixed in writing before work starts.
Is there a minimum fee?
Yes — $320 per purchase order. Below about $6,400 of order value, 5% does not cover the work of finding a factory, verifying it and getting samples made, so the minimum applies instead. It is charged per purchase order, not per product: four products on one order is one minimum, not four.
How do I compare a 5% commission against a flat project fee?
Convert both to money on your actual order value. At 5%, a $10,000 order costs $500 in fee and a $60,000 order costs $3,000. The $1,800 flat fee is the cheaper structure above roughly $36,000 of order value and the more expensive one below it. Percentage suits repeat and multi-SKU ordering where the work scales with volume; the flat fee suits one large order where a percentage would be out of proportion to the work.
Does the 5% apply to tooling and mould payments?
No. Tooling and moulds are passed through at cost and sit outside the commission base. A $12,000 mould does not involve twelve thousand dollars' worth of sourcing work, and charging a percentage on it would be taking money for work we did not do.
Who pays when a sample has to be remade?
Sample and courier costs are passed through at what the supplier charges, on the supplier's invoice, with nothing added. Our fee does not change. If a remake is needed because your specification changed, the remake is billed the same way. If it is needed because we passed your specification to the factory incorrectly, we pay for it.
Do I still pay if I reject every supplier you find?
On the commission structure, no. It is a commission: no order, no fee. We ask for the specification in writing before we start, because in our experience a rejection usually traces back to a spec that changed after the search began — and if the spec changes materially, it becomes a new brief. The flat project fee and single services are paid for the work itself, so those are charged whether or not you place the order.
Does the fee change if production runs late?
No. The fee is fixed when the structure is agreed, and production follow-up runs until the goods ship, however long that takes. The only thing that changes the fee is a change you make to the order after production has started — that is new scope, and we quote it before doing it.
I already have a supplier. Can I buy just an inspection or an audit?
Yes. Single services are $320 per audit or inspection — a factory audit with a dated report, a pre-shipment inspection, or a supplier verification — with no requirement to hand us the rest of the order.
How do I get a number for my own order?
Send the product details through the quote form and we come back with a sourcing plan and a fee quote within 24 hours. There is no charge for the quote and no obligation to proceed.
