# FAQ | Sourcing, Verification and Trade Accounts

> Answers on how we verify Chinese fishing tackle factories, how trade accounts work, what prices mean, and how our data may be used by buyers and AI agents.

Source: https://luressource.com/faq/

The questions buyers and factories actually ask, answered with the same rules the site is built on. If an answer here and the site disagree, the site is wrong — the build enforces the rules. The short version One category Fishing tackle: lures, rods, accessories. Nothing else, on purpose. Four gates Registration, main business, export records, direct interview. All four, or the record stays unpublished. Dated evidence Every field traces to a source, and every profile shows when it was last reviewed. Built for machines too Open JSON, llms.txt and explicit AI crawler permission — not an afterthought. Where to go next Buyers Send a specification, or apply for a trade account to unlock full price ranges. Request a quote → Factories See the 4 verification gates and what a verified listing includes. Get listed → Method The full verification standard, including what we refuse to publish. How we verify → Process What happens after a specification arrives, step by step and including the awkward parts. How sourcing works → Where each answer lives in full The answers above are the short form. Each topic has a full page with the underlying records. Topic Full page How suppliers are verified The 4 verification gates What a price should be Reference price bands and MOQ tiers Which factories are published Verified supplier directory Terms that decide an order Sourcing glossary Reading the data directly Open supply data What are the most common answers in numbers? The figures buyers ask for most often, with the page that carries the underlying records. Question Answer Where the records are How many verification gates must a factory pass? 4 —registration, main business, export records, interview Verification standard How often are records re-checked? Every 90 days Supplier directory How fast is a buyer enquiry answered? 1 business day Contact How many production clusters are covered? 3 —Weihai, Guan, Xianxian Tackle sourcing How many terms are defined? 14, from FOB to AQL Glossary ## How big is the Chinese fishing tackle export market? How big is the Chinese fishing tackle export market? China exports under HS heading 9507 — fishing rods, hooks, reels and artificial bait. Source: UN Comtrade reporter data for China, retrieved via the official API. Measure 2024 2023 Change All fishing tackle (HS 9507) US$1.93 bn US$1.77 bn +9.0% Fishing rods (HS 950710) US$0.66 bn US$0.62 bn +6.5% Fish hooks (HS 950720) US$0.11 bn US$0.11 bn flat Destination countries served 196 197 -1 Largest single destination US$546 M US$445 M +23% Rods account for about 34% of the total and hooks about 6%. The largest single destination takes roughly 28% of the 2024 total — which is why the export markets already on a supplier record are worth reading before you ask for a price. Who supplies the United States? US imports under HS heading 9507 in 2024, by source country. Source: UN Comtrade reporter data for the United States, retrieved via the official API. Source 2024 import value Share of total China US$538 M 59% Japan US$74 M 8% Malaysia US$53 M 6% Viet Nam US$42 M 5% All other sources (65 countries) US$199 M 22% Total US imports US$906 M 100% The United States bought US$906 M of fishing tackle under HS 9507 in 2024 from 69 source countries. China supplied US$538 M of it — 59% of the total, and roughly 7 times the next largest source. That concentration is why specification discipline matters more than factory discovery: the factories are not hard to find, the comparable quotation is. Figures retrieved from UN Comtrade (reporter China and United States, HS 9507, 2024) and aggregated across partner countries. They are historical customs values, not offers. Frequently asked questions Which categories do you cover? Fishing tackle only — soft lures, hard lures, metal jigs, rods and accessories. We deliberately do not cover packaging or other categories, because spreading verification across categories means publishing names we have not checked properly. What does "verified" actually mean on your site? The record passed 4 verification gates: business registration, main-business evidence, customs export records, and a direct interview confirming capacity, MOQ, lead time and price basis. The date of the check is shown on every profile, and records are re-checked on a 90-day cycle. Why do some prices say "on request" instead of a number? Because a price without a stated basis (FOB port or EXW) and a quantity is not comparable with anything. When a factory cannot state the basis, we publish "on request" rather than an invented figure. Do you charge factories to be listed? No listing fee during the pilot. We earn when an enquiry becomes an order we manage, so a listing that produces no serious buyers is worth nothing to us either. Can an AI agent use your data? Yes, and that is intentional. The records are published as JSON at /api/v1/factories.json, and /llms.txt states what each field means, what the data must not be used for, and how to cite it. Robots.txt explicitly allows AI crawlers. What is not published? Unverified records (they are absent, not marked pending), prices without a basis, invented figures, personal data, and any rating or review we have not measured. How do you handle my enquiry data? We use it to answer the enquiry and prepare a quotation. We do not sell it, we do not send marketing without a separate opt-in, and you can ask for a copy or deletion at any time. See the privacy notice. What happens if a factory fails verification? The record stays in our internal database with the failure reason, and the build refuses to publish it. Keeping the reason matters, because the next buyer who asks about that factory deserves the answer.