# How to verify a Chinese supplier before you pay a deposit

> How to verify a Chinese factory before paying a deposit: registration checks, main-business evidence, export records and the interview questions that matter.

Source: https://luressource.com/sourcing-playbook/how-to-verify-a-chinese-supplier/

Direct answer. Verifying a Chinese supplier before you pay a deposit takes 4 checks, in this order. Confirm the legal entity and its insured employee count, confirm the company actually manufactures your category, read customs export records for real destination markets, then interview and take a sample from the production line. The fastest tell for a trading desk posing as a factory is a manufacturing question it cannot answer with numbers. Each check is cheap and can end the process early. It does not replace your own sample and inspection on the first order. Key facts. 1) Insured employee count beats a claimed capacity as a size signal. 2) "Do you export?" is answered yes by everyone; ask where to, how often, and under which Incoterm. 3) Pre-shipment inspection catches problems after the money is spent; during-production inspection is where you can still change the outcome. Sources (6). 1) Method follows our published four-gate verification standard (see /verification/) — internal record 2) Chinese business registration lookup — National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System — https://www.gsxt.gov.cn/ 3) China Customs (GACC) — the authority behind export records — http://www.customs.gov.cn/ 4) ISO standards catalog — quality and testing frameworks — https://www.iso.org/ 5) Harmonized System heading 9507 (rods, hooks, reels, lures) — US HTS lookup — https://hts.usitc.gov/ 6) EU data protection rules this notice follows — European Commission — https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection_en Paying a deposit is a decision about evidence. This guide sets out the four checks worth doing, in the order that eliminates the most risk for the least effort. How the four checks fit together A supplier enquiry usually arrives as a name, a product and a price. The four checks exist to turn that into three separate facts that can each be confirmed or contradicted, because the failure that costs most is not a bad factory — it is a real company that is not a maker of the thing you are buying. The four checks, the question each one answers, and what a failure tells you. Check Question it answers What a failure means 1. Legal entity Does the company on the quotation exist, under that name, and is it still trading? The invoice would be issued by a party nobody has checked 2. Main business Does that company make the category you are buying, or does it trade it? Someone else carries the quality risk on your order, and a factory visit would show you a different business 3. Export evidence Has it actually shipped, and to which markets? The first order carries risks that a shipping history would already have retired 4. Interview and sample Can it state capacity, MOQ, lead time and price basis as numbers? You cannot plan a launch around its capacity, and nothing is left to inspect against Run in that order, because the costs are not equal. The first check is a public lookup and takes minutes; the fourth needs an hour of the factorys own time across a time difference. A buyer who runs them in reverse spends the expensive checks on candidates that a free lookup would have removed. The order also decides what you learn when a supplier fails. A failure at check one is a question about who you are dealing with. A failure at check two is a question about what they do. A failure at check three is a question about track record, which is a manageable risk for a capable domestic-only maker. And a failure at check four is the one worth stopping on, because a factory that cannot state its own numbers does not have numbers you can plan around. Where a supplier passes all four, what you have is a company that exists, makes the category, has shipped, and can state its figures. That is a shortlist, not an approval — the sample and the inspection are what turn it into an order, and they are the subject of the checks page linked below. 1. Check the legal entity, not the brand Ask for the legal company name and the unified social credit code, then confirm the entity is active and how long it has operated. Check the insured employee count: a factory claiming thousands of units of monthly capacity with a handful of insured employees is telling you something. 2. Confirm the main business is what you are buying A valid registration does not mean the company makes your product. Look for the product line on the factory's own materials, the machinery visible in production footage, and certifications relevant to your category. 3. Ask for export evidence The question "do you export?" is answered yes by everyone. The better question is where to, how often, and under which Incoterm. Import records and customs data answer it for you. 4. Interview, then sample Interview questions that produce checkable answers: What is the monthly capacity for this exact specification, not in general? What is the MOQ, and is it set by setup cost or by material? What is the lead time for a repeat order versus a first order? Which certifications apply to this product, and can I see the certificate? What is the price basis — FOB which port, or EXW? Then ask for a sample from the production line, and if the order is large enough, a during-production inspection. What to do with the answers Score them honestly. A supplier who says "I do not know yet, I will confirm by Thursday" is more useful than one who produces a confident number on the spot. Uncertainty you can plan around; invention you cannot. What do you check, in what order? The order matters: each step is cheap, and each one can end the process before you spend money on the next. Match the legal name in the quotation against the registration lookup —a trading name that maps to no entity ends it here. Check the registered scope covers what you are buying, not just "machinery" or "import and export". Ask for customs export records and read the destination markets, not the headline volume. Interview for capacity, MOQ and lead time against the reference bands below. Take the sample from the production line that will run your order, never from the showroom. Write the price basis and the order quantity into the quotation, or the next quote is not comparable. Topics in detail Three topics from this standard have their own page. Each one can be read, cited and updated on its own, without the rest of this page moving. The four checks, and what each one proves Each check answers one question, and each document is evidence of one thing. This page states where the evidence stops, which is the part buyers most often overestimate. 4 questions 1219 words Reference bands for the products you are checking Verification tells you whether a supplier is what it claims. A reference band tells you whether the number is plausible. The two questions are separate and both are worth asking before an order. 1 questions 635 words