Most sourcing losses do not come from bad products — they come from paying a deposit to the wrong company. A polished Alibaba storefront, a fast-talking sales rep, and a few stock photos of a production line tell you almost nothing about who you are actually about to wire money to. Here is the checklist we run before recommending any supplier to a client, in the order that catches the most problems for the least effort.
1. Pull the business license and match it to the bank account
Every legally registered company in China has an 18-digit Unified Social Credit Code, printed on its business license, contracts, and official invoices (fapiao). You can look this code up for free on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (gsxt.gov.cn, the Chinese government’s own registry) or on commercial mirrors like Qichacha or Tianyancha, which have partial English interfaces. This tells you the registration date, registered capital, business scope, legal representative, and whether the company has any blacklist (“dishonest entity”) records.
The one check that matters most in practice: the name on the bank account you are asked to pay into must exactly match the registered company name. A request to wire a deposit to a personal account, a “logistics agent,” or a company with a different name is the single most common pattern in supplier scams — legitimate manufacturers invoice and get paid under their own registered name, full stop.
2. Work out whether you are talking to a factory or a trading company
Neither is automatically a problem — plenty of trading companies are reliable and useful for small or mixed orders — but you need to know which one you have, because it changes your MOQ, pricing, and lead-time expectations. Ask specific process questions: tooling lead time for your exact product, the brand of machine used for a key production step, the size of their in-house QC team. A real factory answers immediately and specifically. A trading company reselling someone else’s output tends to stall, go vague, or need “to check with the workshop” for questions a manufacturer would answer without thinking.
3. Ask for a live video walkthrough — not a video file
Request a real-time video call through the actual production floor, not a pre-recorded clip. Ask them to show today’s date somewhere (a newspaper, a phone screen, a wall calendar) and to walk past machines actually running your type of product, not just any line that happens to be idle and photogenic. Suppliers who agree instantly are usually genuine; suppliers who stall, reschedule repeatedly, or only ever send pre-made videos are telling you something.
4. Treat “Verified Supplier” badges as a starting point, not proof
Alibaba’s Verified/Assessed Supplier badges are a paid third-party audit product (usually run by firms like SGS, Bureau Veritas, or TÜV) — a genuinely useful signal, but it confirms the company exists and was audited on a given date, not that today’s production run, pricing, or capacity claims are accurate. Treat it as passing a first screen, not as a substitute for your own verification.
5. Watch the payment and contract structure, not just the product
The red flags that predict a bad outcome are rarely about the product photos — they are about how payment is structured:
- Pressure to pay 100% upfront, especially for a first order
- Reluctance to sign a proforma invoice with exact specs, quantities, and dates before you pay
- Insistence on Western Union, personal WeChat/Alipay, or a “sister company” account instead of a company bank wire
- Pricing noticeably below every other quote you received for the same spec, with no explanation
None of these alone is disqualifying, but two or more together is a strong reason to slow down.
6. Confirm the sample line is the bulk line
A supplier can hand-build an excellent “golden sample” on a workbench that has nothing to do with how your actual order will be produced. Before approving bulk production, ask directly which line the sample came from and whether it is the same line — same tooling, same material batch — that will run your order. This is exactly where a factory visit or a trusted person on the ground earns its cost back on a single order.
When to get someone on the ground
Everything above can be done remotely, and it will filter out most bad actors. What it cannot replace is physically confirming the factory exists at the stated address, matches the claimed size and headcount, and is actually running your product category — not just running something, on a day chosen to look busy. That is the gap our supplier verification service in Guangzhou exists to close: we visit in person, check the production line against what was promised, and give you a straight answer before you send a deposit.
If you are meeting suppliers for the first time at the Canton Fair or already working with a sourcing agent on the ground, this checklist is the same one we run before any supplier gets recommended to a client. Questions about a specific supplier? Get in touch — happy to give a quick read even before you commit to a full verification.