What I can and cannot do — and how the process runs

What I do:

• Verify a supplier's legal entity and whether they actually own a factory
• Check whether their certifications and test reports will hold up in your market
• Source alternative suppliers in Guangdong (1688 and factory-direct)
• Compare quotations on price, MOQ, lead time and payment terms
• Check packaging and labelling compliance for food-contact, medical device and general consumer goods

What I do not do:

• I am not a certification body or a testing lab. I read documents and check factories; I do not issue certificates.
• I do not guarantee a supplier. I can tell you what I found and what I could not confirm.
• I do not handle your money, your deposits or your shipping.
• I am not a lawyer, and my compliance checks are a gap check, not legal advice. And I cannot act as your litigation representative in China: foreign parties in Chinese court proceedings must be represented by a licensed Chinese lawyer. I help you choose one, brief one and manage the case — I do not stand in for one.
• I do not do full third-party inspection (PSI) with AQL reporting on a mass-production run unless we agree it separately.
• I do not provide debt collection, and I will not refer you to a collection agency. That business model itself carries criminal exposure in China.
• I never promise an outcome, and I never offer a refund if an outcome is not achieved. If someone offers you that, do not sign it.

You are right that I do not know your product as well as you do. That is not what I am checking.

I check the things that do not depend on knowing your product:

• Is this a factory or a trading company?
• Do their certificates actually cover the process they are claiming?
• Is the material they described the material in the test report?
• Do their own records match what they told you?

For product-specific judgement, I will ask you for the spec and check the supplier against your spec — not against my opinion.

For food-contact packaging, no — not in the sense the certificate suggests.

FDA's own words: food facilities do not need a certificate of registration; FDA does not issue a certificate of registration or product status; and FDA does not recognise a certificate of registration or product status issued by a private business. FDA also reminds issuers that the FDA logo is for official FDA use only. Registration is free, and FDA is not affiliated with the businesses that sell "registration".

What actually exists — and what to ask for instead:

• The specific authorisation for the substance and the use: a food contact notification number, a food additive regulation in 21 CFR, or a Threshold of Regulation exemption.
• Whether that authorisation covers the finished article you are buying, not just the resin.
• A letter of guaranty — the document with legal weight for a US buyer. Note the form requirement: where the shipment is from a foreign manufacturer, 21 CFR 7.13(d) requires the guaranty to be signed by that manufacturer and by an agent of that manufacturer who resides in the United States.

What I can't promise: I cannot get you an "FDA certificate", because the thing does not exist in that form. And I cannot guarantee that a complete document set keeps customs or a market regulator off your shipment. Documents are necessary, not sufficient.

Typical sourcing timeline (depends on your product):

Two things buyers most often underestimate: sampling takes weeks, not days (first samples rarely pass on the first round), and shipping is not instant.

See the eight checks in detail →

I am in GMT+8 (China Standard Time) — 12 hours ahead of US Eastern, 7–8 hours ahead of Europe.

What you can expect:

• Emails: reply within 24 hours, and usually within a few hours during my working day
• WeChat / WhatsApp: same
• Video calls: I will book a slot that works for your time zone, including evenings my time

Yes — all of my written work is in English. My spoken English is conversational, not native, so if we do a video call, I may speak a little slowly and I may ask you to repeat something.

I would rather say that up front than have you find out on the call.

Further than the holiday itself suggests. The public holiday is about a week to nine days; the disruption is not.

A carrier's own guidance is blunt: factories typically reduce output two to three weeks before the holiday and may not resume full capacity until mid-March, and the ripple effects on logistics can last up to six weeks. Carriers also cancel sailings — for Chinese New Year 2026, one line cancelled fifteen voyages across several services.

For 2027 the fixed date is Chinese New Year's Eve on Friday 5 February 2027, with the nine-day holiday rule applying.

What I do with that: a backward calendar with five written milestones — last order date, material confirmation date, completion date, inspection window, and cargo-ready-to-carrier date — with the balance payment tied to the same table.

What I can't promise: I cannot make a factory faster, and I will not promise on-time delivery. In April 2026 the industry-wide schedule reliability figure was 62.4%, with an average delay of 5.34 days; the least reliable major carrier was at 39.6%. What I can do is put the real dates in writing, watch them, and tell you early when a milestone slips. I also will not quote you a percentage of buyers who suffer delays — I found no first-hand statistic for that.

One warning from experience: do not pay for a "Chinese New Year guarantee". Carriers cancel sailings, and a supplier cannot overrule that.

Because of one assumption gap. In China sourcing, the working rule is "no news = bad news"; for most Western buyers the default assumption is "no news = good news". That line comes from a bilateral chamber of commerce's own guidance, and it is the single most useful thing I can tell a first-time buyer.

So build the news instead of waiting for it. Put a written update at fixed checkpoints into the order terms — material in, start of production, completion, inspection, cargo ready — and say what happens if an update is missed. I send the update; you do not have to chase it.

Two patterns from buyers' own accounts are worth recognising. First, delay attributed to the destination customs: a buyer messaged the supplier almost daily while being told Canadian customs was simply slow and the goods were held for inspection — part of the shipment never arrived. Second, the explanation that arrives late and changes the plan: a contract for rail freight, shipped by sea instead, with a 41-day delay and the sales season gone. In both cases the buyer was not short of messages. The buyer was short of accurate ones.

What I can't promise: I cannot make a factory tell the truth, and I will not pretend I can. What I can do is raise the frequency and cross-check the content — dated production photographs, container and booking numbers, the documents that should exist at each stage — so that a false statement has to be maintained over time rather than said once. And I will not read every silence as a problem: no statistic exists on how often silence means trouble.

Also from the same source, and worth acting on: the chamber's guidance says it is impossible to manage China operations from a distance, and recommends visiting suppliers at least once a year.

Probably, if it can be — so plan for it rather than be surprised by it. Capacity is finite, and the orders that keep their slot are the ones with a committed payment schedule and a fixed date.

What reduces the risk, in order of effect:

• A production slot agreed in writing, with a date — not a lead time in weeks from an unstated start.
• A deposit that arrives on time. Late deposits are the most common legitimate reason a slot gets given away.
• Milestones with consequences: if a date slips, the new date and its effect on shipping are stated in writing.
• A balance held until inspection passes, which gives you something to withhold if the plan is not kept.

I also tell buyers when the order is too small to command a line. In that case the honest options are to accept longer lead times, pay for a firmer slot, or use a supplier whose line fits your size.

What I can't promise: I cannot get you priority over a bigger customer, and I cannot make a factory reserve capacity it has not agreed to. I also will not pretend to have statistics on how often small orders get bumped — I do not. What I can do is get the slot in writing and tell you early when the plan changes.

There is no payment method that is safe. There is only a payment schedule that keeps your leverage until the goods are verified.

The structure I recommend: deposit against the proforma invoice; balance released only when the goods have passed inspection and are packed and ready. Not when they are "nearly ready", and not against a photograph of a pallet.

Why this matters: once money has left your account, the practical routes to get it back are weak. An EU-funded guide for SMEs says plainly that once an advance payment has been made, if anything goes wrong it is impossible to get the prepayment back without legal action. And platform protection is smaller than most buyers assume: under the platform terms I could verify, late-delivery compensation is 10% of the actual order value with a maximum of US$100, paid as coupons, and one claim per order — and paying outside the platform, by wire transfer for example, voids the protection entirely.

Two rules I apply: never send money to an account that is not the party you contracted with, and never to a personal account. And decide before you pay what you will do if the balance is paid and the goods are wrong.

What I can't promise: I never hold your money, I never act as escrow, and I cannot recover a payment. I do not guarantee that a factory will refund anything. What I do is check the receiving account against the contract and the registration before you send, and write the release condition into the order.

Work through four questions.

1. Was the delay in production, or in transit? They have different remedies and different evidence. Production delay is a contract issue with the factory. Transit delay is a carrier issue — and the industry baseline tells you how normal late is: 62.4% schedule reliability in April 2026, average delay 5.34 days.

2. What did the contract say about the transport mode and the date? A switch from the agreed mode to a slower one is a breach you can document. One buyer's account is exactly this: contracted rail, shipped by sea, a 41-day delay and a missed season.

3. What is accruing while the goods sit? Detention and demurrage are charged from the end of free time, and the importer is liable even when the delay is not the importer's fault. That is a commercial fact of the port, not a penalty you can argue away — which is why the free-time clock belongs in your planning.

4. What does your platform or payment protection actually pay? Read the clause, not the marketing. In the terms I could verify, the ceiling is far below the value of a normal order.

What I can't promise: I cannot guarantee an outcome, and I cannot file a claim for you. I will not quote a shipping rate or a demurrage rate as if it were standard — the figures I found came from a forwarder's explanation and one logistics provider's own estimates, not from an official tariff. What I do is keep the documents that show what happened, which is what any claim or negotiation is built on.