On-site support in China and factory visits

An itinerary built around your categories

A worthwhile trip is not planned on a map but on what you are looking for. We start from your product categories, the specifications that matter to you and the stage your project has reached — broad prospecting or one specific supplier to meet — to settle the list of what is worth going to see.

Geography comes second. Chinese industries concentrate by region, and those regions are hours apart by road or rail: once the list is set, we order the visits so that travel does not eat the week.

The result is a dense trip in which every meeting answers a question you had before leaving.

Seeing the factory, not just the catalogue

An hour on the shop floor teaches what a month of emails will not: the real state of the machinery, whether the lines are running as you walk in, the stock of raw materials, the order that does or does not prevail in the inspection area.

It also settles one simple, frequent question: does the company in front of you manufacture, or does it have manufacturing done elsewhere? On site, the answer is visible. At a distance, it is merely declared.

We arrange those visits, we attend with you, and we prepare beforehand the technical questions worth asking while you are still in the workshop — not afterwards.

Buying at the wholesale markets

Part of Chinese supply does not run through factories at all but through vast wholesale centres, each specialised by sector: electronics, textiles, homeware, hardware, packaging. They hold stock available immediately, in small quantities, on terms that are not negotiated in writing.

These places are hard to approach alone: they spread across several buildings and several floors, English is scarce, and the prices quoted to a foreign visitor are not those traded between professionals.

We go with you, interpret, place the quoted prices against the going rate, and organise the consolidation, packing and shipping of what you buy.

What being there in person allows

• Handling materials and comparing finishes side by side
• Asking technical questions and reading the hesitation in the answer
• Telling a manufacturer from a trader within minutes of conversation
• Negotiating in front of witnesses, which binds differently from an email

A well-prepared day on the ground advances a project further than three weeks of exchanges at a distance.

Trade fairs, when the calendar allows

If your dates coincide with a trade fair, it joins the itinerary: it is a chance to see in two days a number of suppliers that would otherwise take weeks to visit one by one.

The Canton Fair, the best known, is held twice a year in spring and autumn and runs in three phases devoted to different product families. Coming during the wrong phase means missing your entire sector — and without a prior selection of halls or booked meetings, the time goes on walking.

Other, more specialised fairs are often more rewarding than a general one for anyone after a precise sector. We look at which fall during your trip before the dates are fixed.

If you cannot travel

We go in your place: suppliers selected, meetings booked, technical questions prepared with you, then a written account, photographs and samples brought back.

You receive the same structured comparison as if you had made the trip — price, minimum quantity, capacity, lead times and certifications on a common basis.