What 30/70 Payment Terms Actually Protect
Everyone quotes 30/70. Almost nobody checks what the 70 is holding, or what releases it.
Bolang Solutions is a trading company. We chose the model on purpose: it lets us buy across many factories instead of selling you one production line, inspect goods we don't manufacture, and put our own name on every export document as seller of record. The industry's trading-company horror stories are concealment stories — so we run the opposite playbook: registered scope public, address public, and a standing invitation to verify us on gsxt.gov.cn the same way we verify suppliers.
On shipments we trade, the commercial invoice, packing list and bill of lading carry Bolang as seller of record. One counterparty, legally on the hook, answering in English.
Verify us the way we verify suppliers — our registered name, address and Unified Social Credit Code are published on this site; look us up on gsxt.gov.cn.
The split is not the point. The point is the trigger — the event that turns the balance from leverage into money. Two orders on identical 30/70 terms can carry completely different protection depending on one clause, and it is a clause most purchase orders leave out.
The trigger is the whole term
Balance against a copy of the bill of lading means you pay once the goods are on the water. You are protected against non-shipment and against nothing else. If the goods are wrong, you have already paid and you are now negotiating for a credit.
Balance against a passed inspection means you pay once someone has physically checked the goods against the standard you agreed in writing. That is the version where the 70% is doing work. It requires the standard to be written down first — a balance released against “satisfactory quality” is released against an argument.
Both are called 30/70. Only one of them is a control.
Structures worth knowing
30/70 against inspection is the standard worth asking for. 30/40/30 inserts a during-production stage, which suits long runs and tooled work where finding a systemic fault at the end means the whole lot is wrong. Full prepayment hands over every lever you have; it is sometimes unavoidable on small orders from busy factories, and it should be a deliberate decision rather than a default.
The honest trade: pushing terms in your favour on a first order frequently comes back as a higher unit price. That is not a factory being difficult — you are asking them to carry working capital and risk. Sometimes paying the premium for a stronger trigger is the right purchase; the mistake is not noticing you made the trade.
Common questions
Ask why. Capacity and scheduling concerns are answerable. A refusal to allow anyone to look at the goods before the money moves is a different kind of answer, and it is worth more than the discount you were negotiating.
Usually not, and reasonably so — it has generally been spent on materials by the time you change your mind. What matters is whether the purchase order says so, because the disagreement is never about the principle.
Confirmed in writing when we quote, because they move with the item, the tooling and the order size. Where we trade the goods, the balance point and what releases it are both stated on the quotation rather than agreed later.
Related
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