How we verify a Chinese supplier
Verification at Cheery Supply Chain is a four-gate check, and every gate must pass before a factory is published: business registration, main-business evidence, customs export records, and a direct interview confirming capacity, MOQ, lead time and price basis.
- Insured employee count is used as the size signal, because it is harder to inflate than a claimed capacity.
- Customs records answer "do you export?" better than the supplier does.
- Published records are re-checked on a 90-day cycle and dated on every profile.
A directory is only worth reading if the boring part has been done: checking who a factory actually is, what it actually makes, whether it actually exports, and what it can actually produce. Here is exactly what we check, and what we refuse to publish.
What does third-party verification actually cost, and how long does it stay true?
Verification is a purchase like any other, and it has a price and an expiry date. Buyers who know both negotiate differently from buyers who treat it as a formality.
| Service | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Product inspection, all-inclusive | US$419 per man-day | QIMA published rate for Zone A, which includes China |
| Supplier audit programme | US$669 per man-day | QIMA published rate for the same zone |
| Typical market range | US$200 to US$350 per inspector per day | Third-party inspection firms generally |
| Platform-booked inspection | about US$188 | Booked through Alibaba's own service |
One man-day is the unit, and it is not always one day of work: a factory that is a two-hour drive from the inspector's base can be covered in a single day, while a remote site is billed for travel as well. Ask which is being charged before you compare two quotes.
| Scheme | Validity | What it means for your order |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 9001 certificate | 3 years, with surveillance audits at 12 and 24 months | A valid certificate is a live system, not a one-off result |
| SMETA (Sedex) | not accepted as robust after 24 months | High-risk sites are audited yearly, medium-risk every 2 years |
| amfori BSCI | 24 months for an A or B rating | 12 to 36 months depending on score and follow-up |
| Alibaba business license badge | point in time | Confirms the license was valid when checked, not that it still is |
The Alibaba badge is worth pausing on. It confirms that a supplier's license matched Chinese registry records at the moment of verification. It is a statement about a date, not a standing guarantee, and it says nothing about capacity, color consistency or whether hardware is substituted on your run.
What the audit data says about working hours
amfori reported that in 2025, 80% of the factories audited under its BSCI scheme failed to meet working hours requirements. That is not a statement about the factories we work with; it is a statement about the baseline you should assume. A supplier who can produce a current BSCI report and explain its working-hours finding is more useful to you than one who produces a report and does not mention the finding.
How to read a Chinese business license
China's Unified Social Credit Identifier is an 18-character code defined by the mandatory national standard GB 32100-2015. It is built as 1 registration-authority digit, 1 entity-category digit, 6 administrative-division digits, 9 organization-code digits and 1 check digit. The 2015 "one license, one code" reform merged the business license, the organization code certificate and the tax registration certificate into a single document, and that document carries six general registration items: name, entity type, business scope, domicile, registered capital and legal representative. The license issue date is the legal establishment date.
| You can check | You cannot conclude |
|---|---|
| Whether the legal entity exists and is still operating | Whether it runs its own production lines or subcontracts them |
| Whether fishing tackle is inside its registered business scope | What share of its revenue comes from tackle |
| The registration authority, entity type and establishment date | Its capacity, its quality system, or its color consistency |
| Whether the annual report was filed between 1 January and 30 June | Whether the figures in that report are accurate |
Annual filing is mandatory, and the penalty for false disclosure runs from RMB 10,000 to RMB 50,000, or RMB 50,000 to RMB 200,000 in serious cases with a three-year ban on the legal representative. A missing annual report is a dated, checkable warning sign.
What platform guarantees are worth
| Protection | What it actually promises |
|---|---|
| Trade Assurance | A refund can be requested within 30 days of delivery for quality problems, and it is only enforceable when payment was made online through the platform |
| On-time delivery guarantee | Compensation of 10% of actual order value, capped at US$100, claimed within 30 calendar days of the promised date |
| Verified Supplier badge | An on-site check by an independent institution against more than 100 items covering production, R&D, quality control, service and trade capability |
A US$100 cap is not insurance. Treat platform guarantees as a dispute channel that improves your position after something has gone wrong, and treat the inspection you book yourself as the thing that stops it going wrong.
Who we are verifying, in numbers
Weihai Customs data show the city exported RMB 2.45 billion of fishing rods in 2025, equal to 47.4% of China's total rod exports. The cluster has 51 above-scale tackle enterprises with 2025 revenue of RMB 4.268 billion and profit of RMB 424 million, and across more than 1,000 firms, including over 200 rod makers and more than 100,000 workers, manual operations still account for over 80% of production.
That last figure is the one to carry into a negotiation. In a cluster where most steps are still done by hand, the difference between two factories is rarely the machine list. It is who is standing at the bench and how long they have been there.
What does Cheery Supply Chain refuse to publish?
- Unverified records. Not as "pending", not as "coming soon" — absent.
- Prices without a basis. If a supplier cannot state FOB or EXW, the record shows "on request".
- Invented numbers. Where a value is unknown, the field says so rather than showing an estimate.
- Personal data. Business contact details only, in line with applicable data protection rules.
- Ratings. No star ratings and no fabricated reviews.
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 verification gates, one by oneFour gates, run in order, each answering a different question. A record is published only when all four pass.0 questions1384 words
- Re-checks, and how a published record changesA verification is a snapshot, not a permanent grade. This page covers what gets re-checked, when, and what changes a published record.0 questions887 words
- Where the verification data comes fromEvery gate rests on a source outside our control. This page names them, and states what the build refuses to accept.0 questions824 words