Brand buyer
Four shortlisted suppliers, two removed before the visit
A buyer arrived with four shortlisted appliance suppliers found online. Two did not survive the registration checks, and the trip was rebuilt around the two that did.
How to read thisA sample write-up, not a record of a completed trip. It shows the structure and the level of detail of the report you receive after a visit. The client, dates and figures here are illustrative — we publish a real one only with that client's written permission.
At a glance
The facts of the trip.
- Client typeBrand buyer
- CategorySmall appliances
- LocationNingbo, Zhejiang
- ClustersNingbo · Hangzhou
- Duration5 working days
- Headline result2 of 4 failed the licence check
What they asked for
The brief.
The value here was subtractive — two suppliers were removed before any flights were booked, on the strength of the first two checks.
The second ask was comparison: the suppliers that survived had to quote the same unit to one written specification, so the decision afterwards was between two numbers rather than two sales pitches.
Verification
What each check found.
Including the suppliers we advised against.
Checks passed
- Business licence checked against the registered name on the quote at both suppliers we kept
- Export record and overseas customer references confirmed, not just asserted
- Tooling held in-house at one of the two — verified on the floor rather than in the slide deck
- Sample room and production floor seen on the same visit, with no appointment-only showroom in between
Failed — and why we walked away
- One supplier quoted from a trading company's licence while presenting itself as the factory
- One could not produce the certification its own listing claimed, and deferred rather than produced it
VerificationBoth suppliers that survived were re-checked against their registered details after the trip. Neither check had been run by the buyer before arrival — all four had been found by search.
What came out
Deliverables.
- A written shortlist of two, against the specification both quoted to
- Registration and licence records for all four suppliers, including the two we advised against
- A side-by-side quote table, normalised to one specification and one Incoterm
- Notes on which lines are made in-house and which are subcontracted out
What we don't do
What did not go to plan
Every real trip has one. Publishing this part is why the rest is worth reading.
- Hangzhou added an inter-city transfer that cost most of a day. It should have been dropped or run as a separate trip.
- Removing two suppliers on paper left slack in the itinerary that we had planned as visits — the days were fine, the schedule was not honest about it.
- Quote normalisation started on day 5. It should have started on day 1; one supplier re-quoted on the last morning at a figure we had no time to test.
Before you book: how we verify a factory
Every factory on a hosted trip goes through the same five documented checks. Here is the method in full.
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