Quick answer: before sending a deposit to a Chinese supplier, verify who legally owns the factory, confirm it's an actual manufacturer and not just a trading company reselling someone else's production, match the sample against the mass-production plan, make sure payment goes to the company's registered account (not a personal one), and get the inspection process — who checks, and when — in writing. The 10 checks below cover each of these in order, plus a few most checklists skip.
| # | Check |
|---|---|
| 1 | Who is the real company behind the listing? |
| 2 | Is it a factory or a trading company? |
| 3 | Can they show you the factory live — not recycled photos? |
| 4 | Will the bulk run match the sample? |
| 5 | Can they actually produce your order volume? |
| 6 | Where does the deposit go, and what triggers the balance? |
| 7 | Who inspects the product, and when? |
| 8 | Have they shipped to your market before? |
| 9 | Is your product design protected before it's in their hands? |
| 10 | Who checks the goods before the final balance goes out? |
Most buyers treat the deposit as a formality — the paperwork step after the real decision has been made. I see it the other way around. The deposit is the last moment when walking away still costs you nothing, and it's exactly the moment most buyers stop checking, because everything up to now has felt like enough due diligence. It usually isn't.
Think of the typical scenario: you've compared quotes, picked a supplier, and the only thing left is sending 30% — or 50%, or the full amount — so production can start. The supplier is friendly, the replies are fast, and there's gentle pressure to lock in a production slot. That's the setup where I'd slow down.
Why Check Before the Deposit and Not After?
Three reasons:
- It is the last free exit. The deposit is the last moment when walking away still costs you nothing.
- It is when buyers stop checking. Everything up to that point has felt like enough due diligence, and there is often gentle pressure to lock in a production slot.
- You cannot know which check will matter. The one that turns out to be load-bearing differs by supplier, so running all ten beats trusting whichever came up in conversation.
1. Who is the real company behind the listing?
Start with the basics: registered company name, business license number, and factory address — not just the storefront name on Alibaba or 1688. I've written before about exactly how to ask for this without it sounding like an accusation; the short version is that a supplier who hesitates more than a day is telling you something. If you can read the characters, cross-check the license number yourself against China's national enterprise registry. If you can't, have someone who can.
2. Is it a factory or a trading company?
This is the check most buyers skip, and it changes everything else on this list. From what our team sees on the ground, the pattern is easy to recognize: a supplier's sales team works out of Shenzhen, with a polished showroom and fast WhatsApp replies, while the actual production happens at a factory over a hundred kilometers away in Zhaoqing — a factory that has never spoken to the buyer and doesn't control its own quality decisions on that order. Neither arrangement is illegal. A trading company can be a perfectly good partner. But you should know which one you're paying a deposit to, because it changes who's accountable when something goes wrong on the production floor. If this is not your first order with the supplier, see what to re-check on a second order.
Badges don't settle this. In one case our team handled, a client was preparing a 30% deposit to one of four "Verified Supplier" storefronts. When our team ran the license check, all four turned out to be registered as trading or import-export entities, not producers — and the deposit never went out. The takeaway: ask directly: "Is this the factory, or do you work with a factory?" A real factory answers in one sentence, not a paragraph. If the answer is vague, ask for the factory's own business license — not the trading company's — and check whether its address matches where your product is actually made.
3. Can they show you the factory live — not recycled photos?
Photos get reused across dozens of storefronts. A live walkthrough, on request, on a specific day, is much harder to fake. Ask to see the production line for your specific product, workers actually present and working (not an empty floor), and the finished-goods warehouse — not just the front office and a sample shelf. I've covered what a video call can reveal that photos can't — worth five minutes before you schedule one. If you would rather have someone on our team show you a factory live, see our live video factory verification.
4. Will the bulk run match the sample?
A sample tells you what's possible. It doesn't tell you what you'll get from a 2,000-unit run made under time pressure, with a cheaper batch of raw material, by a different shift than the one that hand-built your sample. Get their answer, in writing, to what happens if the bulk shipment doesn't match the approved sample — rework, discount, reshipment — before you pay. I go deeper on this in the 7 questions to ask before wiring money.
5. Can they actually produce your order volume?
If your order alone exceeds their stated monthly output, ask why. The honest answer might be subcontracting to a second workshop — not automatically a dealbreaker, but something you should know about and inspect, not discover after a shipment underperforms. A factory claiming 5,000 units a month off one visible assembly line and a dozen workers deserves questions before you commit to 3,000 of them; a factory that can walk you through which lines run which SKUs, and when, usually isn't guessing. For what happens when a factory takes on more than it can make, see the $480,000 order that nearly bankrupted an exporter.
$49
Written report in 48 hours: company registration, manufacturer vs. trader, and payment-account match.
Request the $49 check6. Where does the deposit go, and what triggers the balance?
"30% deposit, 70% before shipment" is a starting point, not a full answer. Confirm three things: which account the deposit goes to (it should match the registered company name, not an employee's personal account); whether the balance is due before or after your own pre-shipment inspection; and whether you're covered by Alibaba Trade Assurance or an equivalent, versus a direct wire with no platform protection at all (how to pay a Chinese supplier compares the routes). The split matters less than what triggers each payment and who holds the risk in between. If you're on Alibaba, put it in the on-platform order contract, not a chat message — a term agreed verbally is much harder to enforce than one in a contract both sides signed. Also ask which shipping document you will receive when the balance is paid: a bill of lading, sea waybill or telex release decides who can release the cargo.
7. Who inspects the product, and when?
"We have quality control" means nothing on its own — every supplier says it. Ask who does the inspection (in-house staff, or is it self-reported), at what stage (during production, after, or both), and what their rejection rate looks like on a typical order. Ask whether they inspect against an AQL (the agreed defect limit for an inspection sample; glossary) sampling standard or just eyeball a handful of units off the top of a carton — the difference matters far more on a 5,000-unit order than it sounds. A supplier who can describe their own QC in specific terms is in a different category from one who tells you not to worry.
8. Have they shipped to your market before?
A factory that's never shipped to Mexico, the U.S., or wherever your goods are headed may not know the certifications your market requires — DOT and FCC markings for the U.S., NOM certification for Mexico, CE for the EU. Ask for shipping or export documentation to your region, not just "we export worldwide," and for a certificate of origin or test report from a previous shipment to a comparable market if one exists. This gap tends to show up at customs, a far more expensive place to find it than before the deposit.
9. Is your product design protected before it's in their hands?
If you're sending a custom design, drawing, or mold specification, get an NNN agreement in place first — not a generic NDA written for another legal system, but one enforceable under Chinese law (non-disclosure, non-use, non-circumvention). Confirm who owns the tooling and mold once it's paid for, and what happens to it if you switch suppliers later. Buyers skip this because it feels like it slows down a deal that's already moving — which is exactly why it has to happen before the deposit, not after your design shows up on someone else's storefront, or a competitor's, with your mold number still stamped into the part.
10. Who checks the goods before the final balance goes out?
Everything above can be done remotely — by phone, by document, by video call. None of it fully replaces someone physically walking the production floor before your money does: confirming the company on the license is the company making your product, that the line photographed is the line running your order, and that what's sealed in the sample room matches what's about to ship. If you can't be there yourself, that's what a third-party factory audit is for.
If you want someone independent to check the supplier or the goods, our guide to choosing a factory verification provider compares the options, and our inspection standards show how a pre-shipment check is done.
Before you send a deposit to a supplier you have only seen online, consider our factory verification service.
Summary: Run All Ten Before You Pay
No version of this list guarantees a clean transaction. A determined trading company in Shenzhen can perform most of it convincingly for a single meeting — the flowers, the confident answer about the office, the WeChat replies that come back in ninety seconds. What changes the odds is running all 10 together instead of trusting whichever ones came up naturally in conversation.
A buyer could skip everything except the video call and still get burned, because the video call itself was of a rented line, not his line. Another could skip nine of them and be fine, because the one he didn't skip — the business license cross-check — happened to be the one that mattered for that supplier. You can't know in advance which check is load-bearing for your order. That, more than anything, is why I insist our team runs all 10, not just the comfortable ones. And if you don't have the week or two it takes to run this list properly from outside China, that week is what a factory audit is for.
In short, run all ten checks before the deposit moves. If you skip them, the realistic consequences are a first batch that does not match the sample, money tied up with a supplier you could not identify, and a delay to your next order. A $49 remote check covers the company identity, trader-versus-manufacturer and payment-account questions, and a factory visit by our team covers what no call or document can.
I provide supplier verification services, so you should treat my recommendation accordingly.
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