The riskiest moment in any import is the first deposit to a supplier you have never dealt with. Once that money has left the country, your leverage is close to zero. Everything below happens before that point, because afterwards it is far too late.
Establish that the company is real
- Ask for the business licence or registration and check the company name matches the bank account you are being asked to pay
- Check how long they have been trading and whether they have export history
- Be wary when the bank account is in a different name, a different country, or a personal account
- A marketplace listing is not verification. Anyone can buy a premium listing.
Establish that they make what they claim
A great many suppliers are trading companies reselling another factory's output. That is not automatically a problem, plenty of good trades run that way, but you should know which you are dealing with, because it determines who you are actually relying on for quality and for lead time.
- Ask for photographs or video of the production line, not just the finished product
- Ask technical questions a manufacturer would answer immediately and a reseller would have to go away and check
- Request the datasheet or specification and see whether it is theirs or a copy
- Where the order value justifies it, have someone visit
Structure the payment so you keep leverage
Never pay the full amount in advance to a new supplier. A deposit against order confirmation and a balance against pre-shipment inspection is the normal structure, and it keeps a meaningful part of the money on your side of the table until the goods have been checked.
- 1Deposit on confirmation of the order and the approved sample
- 2Production, with progress followed up rather than assumed
- 3Pre-shipment inspection against the sealed sample and the written specification
- 4Balance released once the inspection report is accepted
Warning signs
- A price well below everyone else, with no explanation for how
- Pressure to pay quickly because of a supposedly closing window
- Reluctance to provide documentation that any legitimate exporter has to hand
- Payment requested to an account in an unrelated name or jurisdiction
- Vague answers on specification, followed by confident answers on price
None of these on its own proves bad faith. Two or three together is a reason to stop and check properly rather than to hope.
Need this applied to your shipment?
General guidance only gets you so far. Send us the product, the quantity and the destination and we will tell you exactly how it works for your case, including the numbers.