How we buy
A buying agent, not a broker.
Most sourcing companies make their money on the spread between the factory price and yours. We don’t. We buy for you as a Chinese buyer, charge 2–8% of the order value for the work, and fix that number before we start.
What the identity is worth
The same factory, two different quotes.
Ask a plant in Foshan for a price by email from Europe and you get one number. Walk in with a Chinese business licence and a domestic bank account and you get another. The gap is not somebody’s profit. It is the cost of selling across a border, and it is itemised in the export quotation you were sent.
Ex-works, not export
A domestic quotation carries no export packing, no English documentation, no certificate-of-origin work and no premium for the risk of a customer 8,000 km away. Local buyers do not pay for those, so the base price is lower before anyone negotiates.
Domestic payment terms
Chinese trade runs on negotiated credit: a deposit, a balance after inspection, sometimes thirty days. A foreign buyer wiring 30% before production is asking for a different transaction, and factories price that difference in. On a large order this line is often worth more than the discount.
Volume we put together
One buyer with a part-container has nothing to bargain with. Six buyers sharing one container do. We consolidate the volume first, then negotiate it as a single order. That is only possible from inside the country, which is the whole point of hiring someone here.
How we prove it
Every quote arrives with two prices.
You should not have to take our word for the saving. Each quotation shows the factory’s export price and our local purchase price side by side, so the difference is a number you can check rather than a claim you have to believe.
Why the fee sits on the order value
Plenty of agents bill a share of what they save you. On a China order that percentage is easy to inflate. Measure against a retail price at home and almost any purchase looks like a 70% saving, most of which belongs to the market rather than to the agent. Measure against the export quote a foreign buyer would actually have received and the same order saves a few percent, which is too little to bill honestly. So we take a fixed share of the order value: a number you can check before committing, and one that does not change depending on which benchmark flatters us.
Actual figures depend on product, volume and payment terms, and they are always shown on the quotation for your own order rather than as a headline. Across the orders we have completed the saving has run from 8% to 50%. Two documented cases reached 70% and 86%; the case studies show what made those different.
The negotiation
How a price actually moves.
Negotiation is a process with fixed steps, not a phone call where someone is charming. Here is what happens between your enquiry and the number on the contract.
You send the spec
Product, use, certification, target price, delivery point. Within one business day you get a read on whether the target is realistic.
We price 3–5 plants
Chosen by cluster, not by convenience. Only manufacturers that can hold the specification and the volume get quoted.
We audit on site
Photo and video from the floor: lines, capacity, QC bench, subcontracting. $299 per factory, agreed before anyone travels.
We break down the cost
Material, labour, packing, tooling, margin, each line argued separately against the local market price. Then it goes into a comparison table you keep.
We lock and inspect
Order placed, production followed, every batch checked before loading. The price only holds if the terms behind it are real.
Why our number is lower
A buyer standing inside China is quoted differently.
It is not charm and it is not a volume discount. Four structural reasons the same factory quotes us a lower number than it quotes an importer reading an email.
A cluster has dozens of plants, not three
The factories that answer an English enquiry are the ones with an export desk — and most of them add a trading layer. We price 3–5 real plants in the same town, against the same specification sheet, in one week.
You are quoted an export price, we buy at the RMB ex-works price
An export quote usually carries trading-company margin, an export agency fee and a currency cushion. Every quotation we send shows both numbers side by side, so the gap is not a claim — it is arithmetic you can check.
In a cluster, prices are public knowledge
Factories in the same industrial park know each other’s ex-works price. Overquoting a local buyer gets found out by the next phone call. That is why the “foreign buyer” price exists at all — and why it disappears when someone local is asking.
We can be at the plant the same day
A supplier who knows a claim will be inspected on site carries less risk, and risk is priced in. Distance is negotiating power: two hours by car beats a fourteen-hour flight when a batch goes wrong.
There is a fifth lever that only a local relationship unlocks: Chinese factories run on negotiated credit — a deposit, a balance after inspection, sometimes thirty days. A buyer who can hold that term, and whose money the factory is certain of, gets a better price than one paying by wire from abroad.
Transparent pricing
You are buying a price, not a promise.
Four ways to work with us. Every figure is confirmed in writing before work starts and does not move afterwards. No hidden line, and no margin buried inside the goods.
Initial screening
Free
Specification review, cluster selection, factory matching and an indicative price. If we cannot source it well, this is where we say so.
Factory audit
$299/factory
Site visit with a written report. Priced per factory, agreed before the visit, charged whether or not you proceed.
Negotiation
2–8%of order value
We find, audit and negotiate. You contract the factory and pay the freight. Fixed in writing, and zero if we cannot beat the quote you already hold.
Full-service buying
8–10%of order value
All of the above plus order handling, inspection, certification and shipping, run as one job with one contact.
Where our interest sits
What we don’t do.
We don’t take title to your goods.
We act as your purchasing agent. The factory contracts with you, the goods ship to you, and we never buy the product in our own name to resell it. There is no margin on the goods, because there is no resale.
We don’t push our own factory.
Our own plants make AAC and ALC wall systems. If you are buying wall systems we will tell you so, and you can decide whether to buy them from us. For anything else, the recommendation is decided by your specification.
We don’t charge for a failed negotiation.
If the price we obtain is not better than the quote you already had, the fee is zero. We would rather have the next order than an invoice you regret.
We don’t take work we shouldn’t.
A standard catalogue item in a small quantity, or a product you can buy direct faster than we can source it: we will tell you to go straight to the factory and keep the fee.
Send a specification.
Free screening, an indicative price, and a straight answer on whether we can source it well.