Importing your first product from China

A first order runs in seven steps: find a supplier, confirm they make the goods themselves, buy a sample, write down the specification, place a small order, inspect before you pay the balance, then ship and clear customs. Most first-time mistakes happen in the first four steps, before any money moves.

This guide covers each step and the specific errors that cost people money.

Step 1: Find a supplier

You will probably start on an export marketplace such as Alibaba or Made-in-China. That is fine. Understand what you are looking at.

Many listings are posted by trading companies, not factories. A trading company buys from a factory and resells to you. The photographs are often the factory's own photographs, used by several sellers at once.

There is nothing illegal about this. It just means you are paying an extra layer, and that the seller cannot answer detailed questions about production.

Three checks that take ten minutes:

1. Search the product photograph using reverse image search. If the same photograph appears under five different company names, none of them took it.
2. Ask for the business licence (营业执照). It states the registered scope of business. A manufacturer's scope includes production. A trading company's does not.
3. Ask a specific production question. "What is your cycle time on this part?" or "Which machine do you run this on?" A factory answers immediately. A reseller does not.

Step 2: Buy a sample, and keep it

Buy a sample before you discuss quantities. Pay for it. Suppliers who give free samples often send their best unit, not a typical one.

When the sample arrives and you approve it, this becomes your reference. Label it with the date, photograph it from several angles, and store it. If a production batch is wrong later, the approved sample is your evidence.

Buy samples from more than one supplier where you can. The difference between two samples of the same product tells you more than any conversation will.

Step 3: Write the specification down

This is the step people skip, and it causes more problems than any other.

A model number from a listing is not a specification. If you order "AYK-3200, black," you have agreed almost nothing. The factory will make whatever they normally make, and if the next batch differs, you have no basis to object.

Write down, in a document you send with the purchase order:

• Materials, by name and grade
• Dimensions, with tolerances
• Colour, with a reference (Pantone number, or a physical sample)
• Weight
• What the product must do, and how that is tested
• Packaging: inner carton, outer carton, quantity per carton, markings
• Labelling: what appears on the product, in what language
• The defects that make a unit unacceptable

Two pages is enough for most products. Send it in English and Chinese if you can.

Step 4: Agree the commercial terms

Four things to settle before you order.

Payment. The normal structure is 30% deposit and 70% before the goods ship. Some suppliers ask for 50/50. Some ask for 100% in advance.

Never pay 100% in advance on a first order. Once the money is gone you have no way to make anything happen. The balance payment is the only leverage you have, and you need it at the moment you inspect.

Trade term. This decides where the supplier's responsibility ends.

EXW (Ex Works) means the goods are yours at the factory door. You arrange export clearance, transport, everything. It looks cheap and it is not, because you now need someone in China to handle it.

FOB (Free On Board) means the supplier delivers to the port and handles Chinese export clearance. For a first order this is usually the right choice.

Lead time. Ask for it in writing and expect it to slip. Chinese New Year stops production for two to four weeks, and the weeks either side are disrupted. Check the date before you plan around a delivery.

Tooling. If the supplier makes a mould or a jig for your product and you pay for it, agree in writing who owns it. Without that agreement, you have paid for a tool that stays in their factory.

Step 5: Place a small first order

Order the smallest quantity that tells you whether the product sells.

The temptation is to order a full range: every colour, every size, deep quantities on each. This ties up cash in goods that have not proved they sell, and it teaches you very little.

There is a separate guide on how to size a first order. The short version is that a narrow order you can restock quickly beats a wide order you cannot.

Step 6: Inspect before you pay the balance

Arrange an inspection when production is finished and before the goods leave the factory.

An inspector checks quantity, checks a sample of units against your specification, checks workmanship, checks the packaging, and confirms the labelling and documents. There is a separate guide on what an inspection covers.

The timing is the point. You inspect while you still owe money. If the batch fails, the supplier fixes it before they get paid. After the balance is paid, and certainly after the container has sailed, you are asking for a favour.

An inspection on a small order costs a few hundred US dollars. It is the cheapest insurance available to a first-time importer.

Step 7: Ship, clear, and receive

You will see the same documents on almost every shipment.

Proforma invoice. The supplier's quotation in formal form. You pay the deposit against this.

Commercial invoice. The final invoice. Customs uses it to assess value.

Packing list. What is in each carton, with weights and dimensions.

Bill of lading (sea) or air waybill (air). The transport contract, and for sea freight the document that controls release of the goods.

Certificate of origin. States where the goods were made. If your country has a trade agreement with China, this document is what allows you to pay a reduced duty rate. Ask for it at purchase order stage. Many suppliers will not offer it, and obtaining it after shipment is difficult.

You will need a customs broker in your own country. Find one before the goods ship, not after they arrive. Send them the documents in advance and ask them to confirm the tariff classification.

The mistakes that cost the most

Paying everything in advance. Covered above. It removes your only leverage.

No written specification. You cannot reject goods for failing a standard you never set.

No inspection. You find out what you bought when it arrives, which is the most expensive moment to find out.

Assuming the seller is the manufacturer. You may be paying a reseller's margin and dealing with someone who cannot answer questions about production.

Ordering too much. Cash sitting in unsold stock is cash you cannot use to fix problems or to reorder what does sell.

Ignoring what your market requires. Some products need registration, testing, certification marks, or specific labelling before they can be sold. Find this out before you order, because a factory that cannot produce the required documents is the wrong factory whatever the price is.

Treating the quoted lead time as a promise. Build slack into your plans.

What to do first

Pick one product. Buy samples from two suppliers. Write the specification. Then come back to the commercial terms.

Most people do this in the opposite order, negotiating price before they know what they are buying, and it goes badly.

Verified August 2026. Next review February 2027. Customs and product requirements change. Confirm anything that affects a purchase with your customs broker before you commit.