How to Import from China Safely: A Step-by-Step Playbook

Step 1 — Spec the product before you talk to anyone

This is the most skipped step and it governs everything downstream. Before you contact a single supplier, write a one-page specification: materials, dimensions, tolerances, finish, function, packaging, labelling, and any certification the product needs to clear customs in your market. Vague briefs produce vague quotes, and a vague quote is impossible to enforce later.

A tight spec also changes the conversation. When you send a precise document, serious factories respond with precise numbers and weak ones go quiet. The spec becomes the reference point for the sample, the contract, and the final inspection — the three moments where most disputes are won or lost.

Step 2 — Find suppliers, and know who you are actually talking to

Search the company name — not the storefront name — across Alibaba, Made-in-China and Global Sources. Look at the registration year, response rate, and whether a verification badge is backed by a third-party report. The central question at this stage is simple: is this a factory, or a trading company posing as one?

A trading company is not automatically a problem. But you need to know, because it adds a hidden counterparty, a margin you cannot see, and one more link where things can break. Two checks settle it quickly.

• Ask whether the entity has its own customs registration number. Direct exporters have one; pure traders route through an agent.
• Request a live video walk of the production floor on WeChat — machines running and work in progress, not a meeting room or a stitched showroom reel.

Step 3 — Verify before any money moves

Verification is the gate between a quote and a deposit. The non-negotiable minimum is to confirm the business is real and legally able to do what it claims. A genuine Chinese company has an 18-character Unified Social Credit Code you can check on public registries such as Tianyancha or Qichacha, and the licence-holder name must match the bank account name you are asked to pay. A mismatch there is the most common signal of a shell.

From there the depth of due diligence should scale with order size: third-party audit reports for mid-size orders, an on-site audit for larger ones. We cover the full sequence in our ten-step factory verification guide. The principle is constant — confirmation happens before payment, not after.

Step 4 — Structure payment so the leverage stays with you

Wiring 100% up front is the single most expensive mistake in cross-border trade. Once the full sum has left your account, you have nothing left to enforce quality or delivery with. The fix is mechanical: pay in milestones tied to verifiable events rather than to the calendar.

A common and workable structure is a deposit to fund materials and tooling, a tranche released only after pre-shipment inspection passes, and a final tranche released against shipping documents once cargo is on the water. Where it adds protection, we coordinate Letters of Credit with your bank, or sit in the middle as an escrowed intermediary — the contract in our name, the wire to our Shanghai account, and the leverage to enforce QC retained until the goods are right. Makehe is a sourcing agent, not a bank; what we do is structure the payment so the money and the leverage do not leave you at the same time.

Step 5 — Make pre-shipment inspection the gate on final payment

Quality is not a promise you collect at the end. It is a checkpoint you build into the payment schedule. Before the bulk run ships, a pre-shipment inspection samples the goods to an agreed AQL level, runs function tests against your spec sheet, and checks labelling and packaging — with a photo and video report you receive within roughly a day.

The rule that makes this work: the final payment is never released until that inspection signs off. This is what stops the two most expensive bulk-run failures — material substitution between the approved sample and production, and 'we already shipped, file a claim with the carrier' after scrap has gone into the container.

Step 6 — Choose the Incoterm and plan the shipment

The Incoterm decides who controls the cargo and who carries the cost and risk at each leg. FOB hands you control once goods are loaded at the Chinese port; CIF bundles freight and insurance into the supplier's price; DDP puts the whole door-to-door job, customs included, on the seller. None is universally cheaper — the right choice depends on whether you have a freight forwarder you trust and a customs broker in your own market.

Build realistic time into the plan. Ocean freight from major Chinese ports such as Shanghai, Ningbo or Shenzhen to most destinations typically runs roughly 25–40 days port to port, before customs clearance and inland delivery. Treat any single 'guaranteed' date as a claim to verify, not a fact.

Step 7 — Know the scam patterns, and design them out

Most China sourcing scams are not exotic. They are a handful of repeatable patterns, and the playbook above closes the door on each one before it opens. Recognise them by name:

• Payment-redirect fraud: an email — sometimes from a compromised supplier inbox — announces a 'new bank account' near the wire date. Verify any account change by phone or video on a number you already hold. Treat a changed beneficiary as a stop signal.
• Bait-and-switch: a flawless sample, then a downgraded bulk run. Pre-shipment inspection against the original spec is the countermeasure.
• Trading company posing as a factory: real goods, hidden margin, no production control. The customs-registration and floor-walk checks expose it.
• The vanishing deposit: full payment up front to an entity whose licence name does not match the bank name. Milestone payments and a name match remove the exposure.
• Specification drift: undefined tolerances that the factory 'interprets' downward. A one-page spec removes the ambiguity to interpret.