If it is made in China, we can source it. The products to source from China shown
below are examples drawn from real client orders rather than a list of limits, and
they exist so you can see how we work: typical MOQ, where the factories actually
sit, and what the certificate will be. Your product does not need to appear here
for us to quote it.
People arrive at a China sourcing agent from different starting points. Some already
know the exact product. Some only know the category. Some have a sketch. The route
changes what we do first, so pick the one that sounds like you.
The most common start. You send an Amazon ASIN, a competitor link or a photo taken
in a shop. We identify the factory that makes it, or the closest thing to it, and
come back with a quote that gives you room for roughly a 30% margin at your target
selling price. No markup sits on top of the factory number.
These went out as private label Amazon FBA products. Sourcing is only the first
third of that job: the goods still need barcode labels, polybags with suffocation
warnings, cartons that survive the Amazon network, and photography that passes the
image rules. We handle all of it in one place, so nothing waits at a handover.
We watch what sells because we ship it. When a client asks for ideas we filter
against four numbers rather than a feeling: category rank near 5,000, best
listings holding 200–300 reviews, light and low volume so freight does not eat
the margin, and at least 5,000 units a month moving in the niche.
Development rarely means inventing something new. Far more often it means an
existing product with a better material, an extra size, a fixed weak point or a
different closure. We take it from sketch or reference through tooling, samples
and first production. Kickstarter is a good place to borrow inspiration from.
This is a sample, not a menu. We source anything manufactured in
China, and the eighteen product categories below are simply the products to source
from China that clients ask us for most often, shown so you can see the level of
detail we work at. If your product is not
here, that means nothing more than that it was not one of the eighteen we chose to
photograph — send it over and we will quote it the same way.
Every photo below is from a real order. Typical MOQ figures are the volumes we
normally negotiate from; they move with material cost and customisation, and a
factory that says 1,000 will often accept 300 for a first order if the relationship
is already there.
Reusable fabric masks, household and nitrile gloves, disposable coveralls and infrared thermometers. This is the category where paperwork decides whether the shipment clears, so we ask which market you are importing into before quoting.
Anti-lost wrist links, ninja obstacle lines, compartment lunch boxes and silicone feeding spoons. One of the strongest Amazon categories and one of the strictest: CPC certification and CPSIA testing are non-negotiable for the US market.
Yoga and NBR mats, folding goals, saucer tree swings, resistance trainers. Bulky and light, which means volumetric weight decides your landed cost far more than the unit price does. We quote freight alongside the goods for this reason.
Bamboo serving boards, non-stick bakeware, silicone utensil sets, nesting bowls. Anything that touches food needs a food-contact declaration, and for the EU that means LFGB rather than the FDA wording most factories offer by default.
Rattles, teethers, fidget toys and party novelties. Most of this comes out of Chenghai in Shantou rather than Yiwu, and EN71 for Europe plus ASTM F963 for the US are asked for at customs more often than sellers expect.
Seamless leggings, scrunch shorts, knitted sneakers and toddler footwear. Fabric weight and colour consistency between production runs cause more disputes here than price does, so we hold an approved sample against every new batch.
Household tool kits, T-handle wrenches, hacksaws, tape measures. Yongkang, two hours from our office, makes most of it. Steel grade is where cheap quotes hide, so we ask for the material spec in writing before the first sample.
Glass kettles, power strips, wireless mice, aroma diffusers. The plug type and the certificate are the whole game: UL or ETL for the US, CE and UKCA for Europe and Britain, and a real report rather than a logo pasted on a PDF.
Storage baskets, table lamps, cushion covers, floating shelves and the rest of
the soft-furnishing aisle. Colour consistency between batches is the usual
complaint here, so we hold a signed-off reference swatch against every reorder.
Calculators, lanyards, pencils, staplers, folders, desk risers, paper clips. A seasonal category with a hard deadline: back-to-school buyers place orders in March and April, and a factory booked in June will quote you a worse price.
Mailer boxes, rigid gift boxes, mylar pouches, velvet inserts, non-woven bags. Order packaging at the same time as the product, never after. Waiting turns one shipment into two and adds a whole freight bill for the sake of a box.
Pillows, towel sets, slippers, amenity kits, tissue boxes, cash drawers. Contract buyers here care about repeatability more than novelty, so we keep an approved reference sample and match every reorder against it rather than the photo.
Wigs and bundles, LED mirrors, jade rollers, brushes, sponges, lashes, manicure sets. Fast-growing and repeat-purchase heavy. We do not source cosmetics that go on the skin as a formula, only tools, applicators and hair.
Christmas trees, wreaths, gnomes, inflatables, garlands, party sets, lace gloves. The whole category runs on one calendar: place Christmas orders by May or June, because from August the factories are full and the sea freight rate climbs.
Bandanas, bowls, deshedding gloves, harnesses, cat trees, crates, chew toys. Owners buy for their pets the way they buy for children, which keeps margins healthy. Chew toys need a non-toxic material report, not just a nice photo.
Notebooks, paper straws, lanterns, thermal labels, sticker rolls, coloured card. Demand here is driven by plastic bans rather than fashion, so it is steadier than most. Check the recycled content claim before you print it on your packaging.
Seat organisers, detailing kits, car vacuums, wheel bolts, FM transmitters, full covers. Yiwu prices this category unusually well. Fitment data matters: give us the exact make, model and year rather than a photo of the part.
Hoops, pendant necklaces, headbands, scrunchies, brooches. Light and small, which makes air freight affordable and margins good. For the US, watch lead and cadmium limits on anything plated, and for the EU the nickel release test.
Chinese manufacturing sits in clusters. A town spends thirty years making one thing,
and the entire supply chain for it ends up inside a few kilometres: moulds, materials,
plating, printing, packaging. Buy inside the cluster and the price is structural. Buy
outside it and you are paying someone to drive components in. The last column is how
far each cluster is from our office, because a supplier we can reach and back the same
day gets inspected properly, and one we cannot does not.
When a client asks what to sell, an honest answer needs a filter rather than an
opinion. These are the four we use. A product that clears all four has a realistic
path onto page one; a product that fails two of them is usually a slow, expensive
lesson. Nothing here is proprietary, so run the check yourself before you ask anyone
for a quote.
Ranked much better than that and the category is already defended by brands with
budget. Ranked much worse and there is not enough demand to be worth the tooling,
the inspection and the freight. Around five thousand is the window where a new
seller can still buy their way in.
Review count is the real barrier to entry, not price. If the top listings sit at a
few hundred reviews you can realistically catch them in a year. If they sit at
twelve thousand, no sourcing decision you make will close that gap.
Freight is charged on whichever is worse, actual weight or volumetric weight. A
bulky product that costs three dollars to make can cost four dollars to deliver.
Small and dense products survive freight-rate spikes; large light ones do not.
Enough volume moving that several sellers can be profitable at once. Below this
the niche is a single-winner market, and the winner is whoever got there first
with reviews, not whoever sourced it best.
We quote so the landed cost leaves roughly a 30% margin at the price you plan to
sell at, whichever platform you use. If the numbers cannot reach that, we say so
at the quoting stage instead of letting you discover it after production.
A design patent or a registered brand feature can pull a listing down after the
stock has landed. We check before tooling starts, because the cheapest moment to
discover a patent problem is before you have paid for the mould.
These four questions arrive in almost every first email, so here are the honest
ranges instead of a form. They are typical, not guaranteed: a simple product with
stock material sits at the low end, a customised one with a new mould at the high.
Units, depending on category and how much customisation you want. Stock products
with your logo printed start lowest. A new mould pushes it up, because the factory
needs the volume to justify the tooling.
After the sample is approved and the deposit is in. Add two to four weeks either
side of Chinese New Year, when factories close and the queue afterwards is long.
Stock samples ship in under a week. A custom sample that needs a temporary mould
or a new print takes longer, and that cost is usually credited against your first
production order.
Thirty percent deposit, seventy percent after inspection passes and before the
goods leave. You pay the factory directly; we never sit in the middle of your
money.
Most first-time importers discover the certificate requirement at customs, which is
the worst possible place to learn it. This is the short version by category for the
US, EU and UK. We arrange testing through accredited labs when the factory does not
already hold a valid report, and a report older than a year is usually challenged.
Toys, baby gear and children’s products entering the US need a Children’s Product
Certificate backed by CPSIA testing at an accepted lab. Europe asks for EN71 and
the US market also references ASTM F963.
Kitchenware, bakeware, utensils and storage need a food-contact declaration. FDA
wording covers the US; Germany’s LFGB is the stricter standard most EU buyers ask
for, and factories rarely offer it unless you request it.
Plug-in and battery products need UL or ETL for the US, CE for the EU and UKCA for
Britain. Confirm the plug type before production, not after: rewiring a finished
batch is not a real option.
Lithium cells need a UN38.3 transport report and an MSDS before any carrier will
accept them. Air freight rules are tighter than sea, and a missing report strands
the shipment at origin rather than at the destination.
Nickel release testing for the EU, plus lead and cadmium limits for the US. Plated
costume jewellery is tested more often than sellers expect, particularly anything
marketed for children.
Retail buyers increasingly ask for a chain-of-custody claim on paper goods and
packaging. Ask for it before printing “recycled” on your box, because an unbacked
claim is a legal exposure in several markets.
No category is closed to your enquiry, but four kinds of request are better served
by somebody else, and we would rather say so at the quoting stage than three months
later. Most agents hide this list. Ours is published, because an order we handle
badly costs you more than the one we passed on.
Nike, Adidas, Chanel and the rest. We do not source them and we do not source
copies of them. Replicas draw customs seizure and a counterfeit claim, and the
freight cost of a detained container lands on you, not the factory.
Wicker trays, baskets and rattan furniture are genuinely cheaper out of Vietnam,
where labour costs less. We would be quoting you a worse price to keep the order.
Production delays on this category are also frequent and hard to recover.
Creams, serums and anything ingested carry registration requirements we are not
set up to guarantee. We source the tools, brushes, applicators and packaging
around that industry, but not the formula itself.
One unit of one product is a shopping errand, not sourcing. The cost of finding
the factory, checking it and inspecting the goods exceeds the value of the order,
so you would be paying us more than the product is worth.
Finding a factory is the part everyone talks about. The part that decides whether the
order makes money happens afterwards, and it is all handled by the same team in the
same building rather than passed between three companies who each blame the other
when something slips.
Factory identification, price negotiation and sample coordination. The factory
price is what you pay, disclosed, with the supplier’s identity shown to you rather
than hidden behind a middleman.
Checked during production and again before the balance is paid, so a defect is
found while the factory can still fix it rather than after the container has
sailed and the money is gone.
Shot in our own studio next to the goods. No sample gets couriered abroad and back
just to be photographed, which removes two weeks and a freight bill from a launch.
FNSKU labelling, polybagging with the suffocation warning, bundling and carton
preparation to Amazon’s requirements, priced per unit so you can calculate the
cost before committing.
Sea, air, rail, express and truck compared on cost against transit time for your
specific cartons, with two months of free warehousing while you consolidate
orders from several factories.
Orders picked, packed and dispatched within twelve hours at a flat fee per order,
for sellers testing a product before committing to a container of it.
If it is manufactured in China, we can source it. The eighteen categories shown on this page are examples, not a list of limits: they cover consumer electronics, kitchenware, pet supplies, baby and children’s products, sports and outdoor gear, jewellery, packaging, toys, apparel, hardware, homeware and paper goods, and they are simply what clients ask for most often. A product that does not fit any of them is still worth sending to us. The only things we turn away are branded or replica goods, rattan and wicker, cosmetic formulas and single-piece orders, and each of those is explained above rather than hidden.
Typically between 300 and 2,000 units depending on the category and how much customisation is involved. Stock products with your logo printed sit at the low end. A product needing a new mould sits at the high end, because the factory has to spread the tooling cost across the run. A supplier quoting a 1,000-unit MOQ will often accept 300 for a first order where the relationship already exists, which is a large part of what a local agent is for.
Usually 20 to 45 days from approved sample and deposit received. Simple stock products finish faster; anything with new tooling, custom printing or unusual materials takes longer. Add two to four weeks either side of Chinese New Year, when factories close for the holiday and the production queue afterwards is long. Seasonal categories have their own deadlines: Christmas goods should be ordered by May or June.
No. You pay the factory price directly and we disclose which factory it is. Our income comes from a transparent service commission rather than a hidden margin buried in the quote. This matters more than it sounds: a hidden markup gives an agent a reason to steer you towards the supplier who pays them most, rather than the one who makes your product best.
It depends on the category and destination market. Children’s products need a CPC backed by CPSIA testing for the US and EN71 for Europe. Food-contact items need FDA wording for the US or the stricter LFGB for the EU. Electricals need UL or ETL, CE and UKCA. Lithium batteries need a UN38.3 transport report. Plated jewellery is tested for nickel release, lead and cadmium. We arrange testing at accredited labs when the factory does not already hold a valid report.
Yes, and it is the most common way clients start. A photo, an Amazon ASIN or a competitor link is enough for us to identify the product and find factories making it or something close. Being based in Yiwu helps here, because a large share of small commodities can be matched physically in the market rather than only searched online.
We check four numbers before recommending anything: category rank around 5,000, top listings holding roughly 200 to 300 reviews, low weight and volume so freight does not consume the margin, and at least 5,000 units a month moving in the niche. We also quote so the landed cost leaves around a 30% margin at your intended selling price, and check for patent or brand conflicts before any tooling is paid for.
Yes. Consolidation is one of the main reasons buyers use a Yiwu-based agent. Goods from different factories arrive at our warehouse, are inspected, then loaded into one shipment. You get two months of free warehousing while the other orders arrive, which turns several small expensive shipments into one economical one.
Send a photo, a link or a rough description. You get the factory price, the realistic
MOQ, the lead time and the certificate you will be asked for, before you commit to
anything. It does not need to appear in the eighteen categories above; if it is made
in China, it is in scope.
