Almost every supplier on a B2B platform describes itself as a factory. Many are not. This is not necessarily a problem — a good trading company can be easier to deal with than a bad factory — but you should know which one you are talking to, because it changes what they can do for you and what your price includes.
A trading company adds a margin and a communication layer. On a standard catalogue item that may cost you little. On a custom item it costs you a lot: every question about tolerance, finish or a manufacturing change has to travel through someone who cannot answer it, and the answer comes back slower and less precise each time.
1. Ask for an audit report and read who issued it. Third-party inspection bodies classify suppliers as manufacturer or trading company after visiting the site. Our TÜV Rheinland audit was carried out on the working factory in March 2026 for Alibaba's supplier verification programme, report TP2603242003, and classifies us as an own factory — production, not trading, and not rented capacity.
2. Check the business licence scope. Chinese business licences state the registered scope of business. A manufacturer's licence says manufacture. Ours is 91330304MAK4F9687M and is verifiable on the national register at gsxt.gov.cn — as is any supplier's, if they give you the number.
3. Ask a question only the floor can answer. Not “can you make this” — everyone says yes. Ask something specific: what is your minimum wall thickness on this shape, what happens to the grain where the lid meets the body, how do you set magnet depth. A factory answers immediately. A trader goes away and comes back.
4. Ask to visit, and see how they react. The answer tells you more than the visit would. We are in Ouhai Economic Development Zone, Wenzhou — 4,000 m² of workshop and forty staff. Give us a few days' notice and we will show you the floor.
Cutting, machining, laser engraving, finishing, inspection and packing under one roof, and photographs of it that were obviously not taken from a stock library. If the same three photographs appear on six suppliers' listings, none of them took them.
DAP, DDP, EXW and the surprise invoice at the border. What our published prices include, and what you still pay.
Veneer over MDF and stained lighter timber are both sold as walnut. Three checks you can do on a sample in under a minute.
Selling personalised wooden gifts without holding stock. What goes in the parcel, what does not, and the two things that go wrong.
Ask us directly — we answer specifics rather than sending a brochure. Delivered prices, freight included, on every product page. Minimum 10 pieces per style.
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