metier
WHAT WE DO

Sourcing, quality, trading, and logistics under one contract

Use a single service or hand us the whole chain. Either way you work with one team, and Metier stands behind the result.

Sourcing & Vendor Selection
From product idea to approved supplier: factory identification, capability and financial vetting, price negotiation, and sample coordination. You never need to board a plane. Adding the next supplier is the same service run again.
Supplier Search Only
Not every job needs us in the middle. If you want to hold the supplier relationship yourself, we can run the search and the qualification and then step back: candidates identified, factories visited and audited, samples coordinated, terms benchmarked, findings written up. You contract with the supplier directly and pay us a fee for the work. If you later want us to run the orders, we can, and if you don't, the report is yours to use.
Quality Audits & Inspection
Factory audits, unannounced visits, and a pre-shipment inspection on every order, from a one-pallet first run upward. Our team built its methods in environments certified to ISO 9001, ISO 13485, IATF 16949, and AS9100, and audits suppliers to those standards.
Trader of Record
Place your purchase order with our Hong Kong company and we take ownership of the vendor relationship, the goods, and the delivery commitment. One invoice under Hong Kong commercial law, in the currency agreed for your order. Pricing is open book: the factory invoice, the costs, and our fee, each on its own line. How that works.
Design & Build
Some customers arrive with a problem rather than a product. You describe what the equipment has to do, and we take it from there: design against your functional specification, build with a qualified manufacturer or in our own light assembly, test it before it ships, and support it afterwards. You approve the design before anything is made, and you attend the factory acceptance test or send someone. Tooling you pay for is yours. Custom designs you fund are yours.
Door-to-Door Logistics
Consolidation, freight booking, customs documentation, and tracking through to the destination you nominate, on the terms agreed for that order, with certificates of compliance included in the shipping documents.
Duty & Origin Work
Classification review, origin documentation, and verification of the duty treatment for your destination market before you commit, with candidate origins compared when it matters. Method is described on the sourcing & origin page.
White-Label Partnership
For distributors and brands with their own customers: we handle sourcing through delivery behind your name and on your documents. Your customers never see us. Orders can move from your store or ERP straight to us — see how we work.
WHERE WE DIFFER · OPEN BOOK PRICING

You see the factory invoice and our fee

We buy from the factory and sell to you. You see the factory invoice, the freight cost, the inspection cost, and what we charge on top. Our fee is agreed before the order goes in, and it sits on your invoice as its own line.

Plenty of sourcing agents earn a second margin from the factory that the buyer never sees. Some mark up the freight. We don't do either, and you can check that against the documents that come with your order.

One invoice, three lines
The factory invoice, the costs, and our fee. Freight, inspection, duty and handling appear as themselves, passed through at what they cost us.
Fee agreed up front
Set before the order goes in. No hidden factory commission, no marked-up freight. Prefer to hold the supplier relationship yourself? We work to a fee for the search and qualification instead.
First sale evaluable
Because you can see the factory price, first sale valuation can be assessed for your goods and your route.
WHERE WE DIFFER · BUYING INSIDE CHINA

We buy as a Chinese company

Plenty of what you find on the export marketplaces is being resold. A listing that says manufacturer is often a trading company buying from the same factory you were trying to reach, and the price carries that extra layer. The seller underneath has no export licence, can't take a foreign payment, and won't ship overseas: from outside China there's no way through.

We buy on the domestic market where those sellers actually operate. In Mandarin, paid through Chinese banking, delivered to our own address in Dongguan.

Domestic buying
We purchase where the real makers sell, past the marketplace resellers and their margin.
The export route
China runs a market-purchase trade regime for small-quantity, multi-variety exports from suppliers who can't issue an export invoice. It's a published customs supervision mode, and we're set up to use it.
Both routes priced
Where a supplier can invoice properly we buy that way instead. We show you both, and sometimes there's no saving at all.
WHERE WE DIFFER · SENSITIVE PROGRAMS

When no single factory should see the whole product

Some products carry designs worth protecting. For those, Metier splits production across vendors and manages final assembly, kitting, and processing itself. Each supplier makes a component; only we hold the complete picture.

Consolidated goods ship export-ready, with the same inspection and documentation as any other Metier order.

Split Production
Components sourced from separate vendors, each working to its own drawing.
Metier-Managed Assembly & Kitting
Final assembly, kitting, and packaging run under our supervision from start to finish.
Export-Ready Consolidation
Inspected, documented, and shipped as one order with one invoice.
WHERE WE DIFFER · CONSOLIDATION & STOCK

One shipment instead of five

Once you're buying from more than one supplier, the shipping maths turns against you. Small LCL shipments carry minimum charges whatever the volume, and every separate shipment means another customs entry and another set of broker fees.

The alternative is to have your suppliers deliver to us in China. We set up a receiving point for your programme, check the goods as they arrive, and send everything out together when the shipment makes sense.

One shipment, one entry
Goods travel together, past the LCL minimums and the per-entry broker fees.
Stock held in China
We can hold goods and release them as you need, keeping your cash in your business rather than in a warehouse.
Only when it pays
We tell you when your volume makes this worth paying for. Below that, ship direct and keep it simple.

Tell us what you need to import.

Whether it's a product idea, a supplier problem, or a full supply chain to rebuild, start with an email. We reply within one business day.

Answer what you know. Blank is fine.
Please don't send confidential drawings or specifications yet. If the work needs them, we'll put an NDA in place first.
We read it, come back with questions, and give you a view on whether it's worth pursuing before anyone quotes anything.
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