Guides for people importing from China
Every written guide 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.
Two pages for when the problem is already in front of you. Neither 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 →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.
Four ways to find out who you are actually dealing with, 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 →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 →Getting the goods into your market
What it costs at the border, and what your market puts on you rather than the factory.
Both pages carry the date they were last checked, and both say they are 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 →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.