Supply Chain Check
What you receive ten working days after ordering. A real report with the client, supplier and figures altered enough to protect them; the structure, depth and tone are exactly what yours will be.
Your supplier is a trading company. The factory behind them would sell to you directly, at 17–22% less, and has told us so.
On last year's volume the gap is roughly US$310,000 a year before freight. The trader has provided real value — consolidation and QC — which we price at about a third of that. The rest is margin you are paying for an introduction you can now make yourself, with us in the room.
- Recommendation
- Move products A and B to the factory directly under a supply agreement; keep C with the trader for one more season while an alternative is qualified.
- Risk to act
- Low. The factory has the capacity and has supplied your category to Europe for six years. Your trader has no exclusivity.
- Risk to wait
- Tariff reclassification on product B (section 5) costs you more per quarter than the switch does.
Supplier profile — from the registry
Everything below comes from the National Enterprise Credit Information system, court and customs records, and the commercial databases that index them (天眼查, 企查查), pulled on the dates in section 7 and translated. The right-hand column is what each line means for you; the flag is our read.
Registration
| Field | What the registry says | What it means for you | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered name (中文 / EN) | ████████贸易有限公司 / ████████ Trading Co., Ltd | The word 贸易 means trading. Manufacturers register as 制造 / 科技 / 实业. | Watch |
| Unified social credit code | 91330████████ | Their single legal ID. Use it, not the English name, on every contract. | — |
| Status | 存续 (in existence, active) | Active and filing. Deregistered or revoked suppliers still trade under old names. | Clear |
| Company type | 有限责任公司 (自然人独资) — LLC, single natural-person owner | One person controls everything. No group, no parent to stand behind a claim. | Watch |
| Established | 14 May 2019 | Six years. Long enough to have a record; young for a "20-year factory". | Clear |
| Registered capital | RMB 1,000,000 subscribed · RMB 0 paid-in (实缴) | Capital is a promise, not cash. Zero paid-in is common for traders, rare for plants. | Watch |
| Legal representative | ████████ (also 100% shareholder, executive director) | The person legally answerable. Same person as owner — decisions are fast, recourse is thin. | — |
| Registered address | Room 1608, ████████ Building, Yinzhou District, Ningbo | A 16th-floor room. Plants register at the plant. | Risk |
| Operating address (on invoices) | Same as registered | Confirms the office. The "factory" in their video is elsewhere — see section 3. | Risk |
| Business scope (经营范围) | Import and export of goods and technology; sales of household goods, outdoor products, hardware; no production listed | No manufacturing scope. Legally they cannot make what they sell you. | Risk |
Ownership and people
| Field | What the registry says | What it means for you | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shareholders | 1 natural person, 100% | No investors, no group. Ownership as stated. | Clear |
| Ultimate beneficial owner | ████████, PRC national | The same person. No hidden controller found. | Clear |
| Key personnel | Executive director / GM: same person; supervisor: one other individual (related surname) | A family office in the literal sense. | — |
| Branches and affiliates | None registered; owner holds no other companies | No affiliated plant. The factory in section 3 has no ownership link. | Watch |
| Change history (变更记录) | 2021: registered capital 500k → 1M. 2023: scope widened to include outdoor products. 2025: address change within the same building | Scope widened when they took your category on. Nothing alarming. | Clear |
Licences, IP and scale
| Field | What the registry says | What it means for you | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production licence | None — not applicable to a trading scope | Consistent with a trader. | — |
| Export / customs registration (海关注册) | Registered 2019; export records exist | They do export in their own name — a competent trader, not a broker. | Clear |
| Certifications claimed vs held | Website claims ISO 9001 and BSCI; registry and certification bodies show neither in this company's name | The certificates on their site belong to the plant, not to them. | Risk |
| Patents / trademarks | 2 trademarks (their own brand); 0 patents | No product IP. Your designs are protected only by your contract. | Watch |
| Social insurance headcount (参保人数) | 7 staff insured (2025 annual report) | Seven people. A 400-person factory does not fit in this company. | Risk |
| Tax credit rating (纳税信用等级) | B (2025) | Compliant, not exemplary. A or B is normal for small traders. | Clear |
Litigation, penalties and credit
| Field | What the registry says | What it means for you | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Litigation (裁判文书) | 2 civil cases as defendant, 2022–2024: one supplier payment dispute (settled), one buyer quality dispute (judgment against, RMB 86,000, paid) | A quality judgment against them is worth reading. Paid, closed. | Watch |
| Dishonest executor (失信被执行人) | Not listed | Not on the blacklist. | Clear |
| Enforcement records (被执行人) | None open | No unpaid judgments. | Clear |
| Administrative penalties (行政处罚) | 1 — customs declaration error, 2023, RMB 12,000 | Minor. Would be alarming if repeated. | Clear |
| Operating anomalies (经营异常) | None current; one 2022 listing for a late annual report, removed | Housekeeping, resolved. | Clear |
| Equity pledges / freezes | None | No lender has a claim on the company. | Clear |
A small, real, reasonably well-run trading company — seven staff, active export registration, one paid quality judgment, no blacklist entries. Not a fraud. But every certificate on their website belongs to someone else, and the company has no legal capacity to manufacture anything. You have been buying from an intermediary for four years.
Factory or middleman — the site visit
Our manufacturing partner visited the registered address on ████████ September. Room 1608 is a six-desk office with a sample wall; no production, no warehouse. The "factory tour" video sent to you in 2024 was filmed at a plant in ████████, Zhejiang, owned by an unrelated company — identified from the workshop signage and confirmed at the plant in section 3.
- Verdict
- Middleman. Competent, and real — but you are paying for a layer.
Factory-gate benchmark
Three factory owners quoted the same specification, written in Chinese from your drawings, at your annual volumes. Quotes are FOB Ningbo, 30-day validity, in writing.
| Product | You pay (FOB) | Owner quotes, range | Gap | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A · Insulated bottle, 750ml | US$6.40 | US$4.95–5.30 | −17 to −23% | Your current factory quoted US$5.10 directly |
| B · Folding camp chair | US$14.80 | US$11.60–12.40 | −16 to −22% | Fabric grade confirmed identical |
| C · Headlamp, 400lm | US$9.20 | US$8.70–9.60 | −5 to +4% | Trader's price is fair here; electronics sourcing is their strength |
Quotes on file with the factory names; released to you on the report call.
The tier below
Products A and B are made at a single plant in ████████, Zhejiang: 400 staff insured, two of your competitors on the same lines, BSCI audit current, production scope and licence in its own name. Product C is assembled at a smaller electronics plant in Dongguan whose battery cells come from a supplier that lost UL listing in March. That is the real quality risk in your chain, and it is not visible from the trader's paperwork.
- Plant A/B
- Owner-operated, direct-export capable, no exclusivity with your trader
- Plant C
- Assembler; cell supplier changed in Q1 — request current UL/IEC 62133 certificates before the next PO
- Concentration
- Two of your three products depend on one plant — acceptable, with a qualified second source within 12 months
Landed cost, rebuilt
Per unit, product B, at today's rates, Ningbo to Los Angeles, your typical 40HC mix.
| Line | As invoiced | Rebuilt | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Factory / FOB | US$14.80 | US$12.00 | Direct, mid-range owner quote |
| Ocean freight, share | US$0.92 | US$0.88 | Current contract rate |
| Duty | US$3.70 | US$2.16 | Classified as furniture (9401) by your broker; correct heading is 9401.79 — verified, the difference is real |
| Additional tariffs, China origin | US$3.70 | US$3.00 | Follows the corrected base |
| Brokerage, drayage, share | US$0.41 | US$0.41 | Unchanged |
| Landed, per unit | US$23.53 | US$18.45 | −21.6% |
Classification opinion prepared with a licensed customs broker; a binding ruling request is the safe route and takes 30–60 days.
The rooms that change the number
Three introductions, by role. Each is a person we know; the names come with the report call.
A supply agreement with your quality standard written in, tooling in your name, 60-day terms after the first two orders.
Reclassification of product B and a binding ruling request, so the saving is defensible.
Qualified in parallel for product C, with cell certificates in hand before a single unit ships.
Method and sources
National Enterprise Credit Information system extract (████████ Sept); 天眼查 and 企查查 profiles (same date) for litigation, penalties, headcount, changes and pledges; customs registration query; certification-body registers for ISO and BSCI; on-site visit to the trader's office and plant A/B; three written owner quotes on a Chinese specification prepared from your drawings; freight at your forwarder's current contract; duty per the current HTS with a broker's opinion; certificates requested from plant C's cell supplier. Everything cited is on file and shown to you on the report call.
Your report follows this structure exactly — on your supplier, your products, your port. US$2,500, credited against your first engagement or refunded if it doesn't earn its price.
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