How to Find a Reliable Sourcing Agent: 12 Questions
Anyone can call themselves a sourcing agent. There is no licence, no register and no minimum standard. The person answering your enquiry may be a two-person brokerage working from a spare room in Shenzhen, or a genuine operation with staff on factory floors three days a week. From the outside, their websites look identical.
These twelve questions cut through it in about forty minutes of conversation. For each one, the answer you want and the answer that should end the discussion.
Questions about the company
1. Are you a sourcing agent or a trading company?
Good answer: a clear, immediate statement of which model they operate, followed by how they charge for it. Agents say they charge you a fee and you pay the factory. Traders say they quote you a price for the goods.
End the call: evasion, or the claim that the two are basically the same thing. They are structurally different, and anyone in the business knows it.
2. How long have you been operating, and who owns the company?
Good answer: a specific founding year and a named legal entity. You should be able to find that entity in China’s national enterprise credit system.
End the call: a trading name with no legal entity behind it, or a founding date that shifts as the conversation goes on.
3. How many active clients do you work with, and what is your typical order size?
Good answer: a number in the tens, with a stated order range. Twenty clients at $30,000 average means real attention. Four hundred clients means you are a ticket number.
End the call: they will work with anyone at any size. That usually means the work is outsourced to whoever is free.
Questions about how they work
4. Who will handle my account day to day?
Good answer: a named person, with a note on whether they work in your time zone and how fast they reply. Ask what happens when that person takes leave.
End the call: a sales team that promises a dedicated manager later. Who handles the account after the contract is the question, not before.
5. How do you verify a factory before you place an order?
Good answer: business licence check, registry search, and a physical visit with photographs of the production floor. The best ones will describe what they look for on the visit without being prompted.
End the call: a description of an online check only. Photos from a catalogue and a verified-supplier badge from a B2B platform are not verification.
6. Can I see the factory’s business licence and the factory invoice?
Good answer: yes, on request, without argument. This is the single most revealing question to ask a self-described agent.
End the call: reasons why that is not possible, or an offer to send their own invoice instead. A reseller cannot produce a factory invoice showing a price you were never meant to see.
7. Will you give me the factory price, and how is your fee calculated?
Good answer: the factory price as a line item, the percentage, and the base the percentage applies to. An agent who cannot name which commission model they work on is improvising.
End the call: a single blended price per unit. That is a trading margin wearing an agent’s clothes.
8. Do you receive any payment from suppliers?
Good answer: a plain no, ideally in writing.
End the call: any version of sometimes, it depends, or a discussion of how commission rebates are normal in China. They are common. That is exactly why the question matters, because a rebate creates an incentive for your factory price to go up.
Questions about quality and risk
9. What happens if the goods fail inspection?
Good answer: a described process. Inspection report issued, buyer sees it before the balance payment releases, factory given a rework window, re-inspection before shipping. Ask who pays for the re-inspection when the fault is the factory’s.
End the call: reassurance with no process. We will make sure it is fine is not an answer.
10. Which inspection company do you use, and can I see a sample report?
Good answer: a named third-party firm such as SGS, Bureau Veritas, TÜV, Intertek or QIMA, and willingness to send a redacted report showing the format and the defect classification.
End the call: in-house inspection with no third-party option and no sample report. Third-party inspection costs $250 to $400 per man-day, which is why agents with no inspection budget skip it.
11. How do you handle a supplier who ships defective goods?
Good answer: a specific escalation: withheld balance payment, documented claim with photographs and inspection report, credit against the next order or a rework at the factory’s cost. Ask how often they have had to do it.
End the call: it has never happened. With hundreds of orders placed, that answer is either naive or dishonest.
12. Can you give me two references from clients buying a similar product?
Good answer: two or three contacts, ideally in your category and region, offered without delay.
End the call: confidentiality used as a blanket reason to refuse all references. Real confidentiality protects client names from public marketing. It does not prevent a reference for a serious prospect.
What the answers should add up to
You are not looking for a perfect score. You are looking for three things: a legal entity you can verify, a fee structure where the factory price stays visible, and a named person who will answer question nine without rehearsing.
| Signal | Green flag | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Searchable company registration | Trading name only |
| Pricing | Factory price shown separately | One blended unit price |
| Supplier payments | None, confirmed in writing | Rebates described as normal |
| Verification | On-site visits with photos | Platform badges only |
| Inspection | Named third-party firm | In-house, no report format |
| Failure handling | Documented process, past examples | It has never happened |
| References | Offered in your category | Refused on confidentiality grounds |
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find sourcing agents in China?
Four routes, in descending order of reliability. Referral from another importer in your category, which is by far the best. Industry associations and trade show contacts. LinkedIn, where you can check an individual’s history before making contact. And B2B marketplaces, which is where the least verification is available and the most competition on price. Treat any agent who approaches you first with the same twelve questions.
How much should I pay an agent to start?
Nothing beyond the fee on a real order, and no retainer for a first conversation. A legitimate agent will quote your product for free. Be cautious of an upfront onboarding fee before any sourcing work has been done, particularly one framed as a deposit against future commission.
Should I use an agent based in the same city as my factory?
Proximity helps. An agent within an hour of your factory can attend inspections, resolve disputes in person and visit during production. Guangzhou, Yiwu, Ningbo and Shenzhen-based agents cover most product categories, and clusters in Zhejiang, Fujian and Shandong are usually reachable for an overnight trip.
How long should a trial last before committing?
Run one order. If the quotes are competitive, the inspection report is honest including when it finds problems, and the answers to your emails are actually answers, you have your agent. One order tells you more than three months of correspondence.
Start with the paperwork, not the pitch
The questions above take forty minutes and save the kind of money that takes a year to earn back. If you want to run them past us first, email the product and quantity and we will answer all twelve before you ask, including the ones about rebates and past failures. Details of what we do at each stage are on the services page, and you can reach us through the contact form. Our success stories show the categories we work in most.
