20 questions buyers ask before hiring a China sourcing agent.

A sourcing agent finds, vets and manages suppliers in China on behalf of a business buyer. Typical work includes locating factories, negotiating price and MOQ, arranging samples, coordinating quality inspections and organising shipping. The agent is your local presence when you cannot verify a factory or follow production in person.

A commission on the order, agreed before you commit. No fixed fees, no retainer, no charge for the first call. The factory price, freight and duties are paid separately. Most agents in China work on a commission of a few percent of the order value; ask any agent how the percentage is calculated and on what base.

Alibaba helps you find listed suppliers, but it does not verify who is behind a listing, negotiate for you or inspect goods before shipment. A sourcing agent adds physical verification and local negotiation. Many buyers use both: Alibaba to explore, an agent to buy. For a small, standard, off-the-shelf order, Alibaba alone is often enough.

Check the business licence on the national registry, ask for export history and client references, and compare the stated capacity with the volume they quote. A short video call showing the production floor, or a third-party factory visit, catches most of what documents miss. Our suppliers already passed these checks and already export to foreign buyers.

A supplier who has shipped to Europe, Russia or North America knows export packaging, documents, payment terms and the quality expectations of foreign buyers. That removes a whole category of first-order problems. These suppliers rarely do their own business development abroad; they work through agents like us, which is why you will not find most of them on Alibaba.

No. Haimai Global is based in Yiwu, but the suppliers we work with are spread across China: Zhejiang and Guangdong for consumer goods and electronics, Jiangsu and Hebei for metal parts, and the solar and battery clusters of eastern China. Yiwu is our base and a strength for small commodities, not a limit.

With a clear product spec, a shortlist of vetted suppliers with comparable quotes typically takes two to three weeks. Add one to two weeks for samples. Production lead times are set by the factory and confirmed in writing before any deposit. Everything stretches if the request lands close to the Chinese New Year shutdown.

There is no universal number. MOQ depends on the product, material costs and how the factory runs its lines. First-time buyers can often negotiate a lower MOQ against a slightly higher unit price. For small commodities, many suppliers accept mixed small quantities that a large factory would refuse. Always confirm MOQ per SKU, not per order.

For most products, yes: we collect samples from the shortlisted suppliers, check them against the spec and ship them to you in one parcel. For some categories, such as large equipment, solar modules or custom-tooled metal parts, a sample is not practical; we then arrange a factory video call, detailed photos, or a small paid pilot run instead.

AQL, for Acceptable Quality Limit, is a statistical sampling standard defined in ISO 2859-1. It sets the maximum share of defects tolerated in a batch based on a sample rather than a full count. A pre-shipment inspection pulls a sample sized to the order quantity and checks it against the agreed AQL level before goods leave the factory.

A failed inspection means the sample exceeded the agreed defect rate. You can request rework, accept a partial shipment of passing units, or renegotiate the price before releasing the balance payment. The remedy should be written in the purchase agreement before production starts, not decided afterwards.

Yes, the whole chain: consolidation of several suppliers into one shipment, export documents, freight by sea, rail or air, customs coordination and delivery to your warehouse or Amazon FBA. If you already have a forwarder or carrier in China, we work with them: handover at the factory gate or the port, documents prepared for them, and we stay the contact on the supplier side.

Consolidation combines goods from several suppliers into one shipment, so the container or freight cost is shared instead of paid per supplier. It also means one customs entry instead of several. For buyers who mix products from different suppliers, it is usually the only way to ship economically.

FOB, Free on Board, is a common starting point. The supplier covers costs up to loading on the vessel; you handle freight, insurance and customs from there. It gives more visibility on shipping costs than EXW without the full complexity of DDP. We can quote either way, including door to door.

Chinese New Year 2026 fell on 17 February, with an official holiday from 15 to 23 February, but the real disruption ran from late January to mid-March as workers travelled home and factories restarted. Orders placed too close to that window get delayed. Place orders at least six to eight weeks before the holiday.

Red flags include a factory that cannot answer specific production questions, pressure to wire a deposit to a personal bank account, prices far below market average, and a refusal to allow a video call or an inspection. One alone is not proof. Several together mean walk away.

Commission scales with order value and suits buyers who want no upfront cost and an agent paid only when an order happens. Flat fees suit one-off scopes like a single audit. Haimai Global works on commission, so a first order costs you nothing until it becomes an order.

Yes, and it is one of the most measurable parts of the service. An agent negotiating in Mandarin, with visibility on comparable market prices, usually gets better terms than a foreign buyer negotiating alone. The negotiation also covers MOQ, payment terms and lead time, not only unit price.

A factory makes the product. A trading company buys from one or more factories and resells, often without saying so. Trading companies are not a problem in themselves, but paying a factory-direct price to a trader who adds an undisclosed margin is a common first-order mistake. We tell you which one you are dealing with.

Not always. If you want a small, standard product available off the shelf from a verifiable supplier, going direct can be simpler. An agent earns its commission when the product is custom, the supplier is unknown, or the order is large enough that a bad batch would hurt. We say so on the first call if we would not add value.