Verify Chinese Suppliers Before You Pay

No. FactoryPass China reports what the available evidence shows and where it is inconsistent or missing. A registry record can confirm that a company is registered and active; it cannot confirm that the company will perform. We use a visible-risk vocabulary — low, moderate, elevated or high visible risk, or insufficient information — precisely because a guarantee would misrepresent what any review of this kind can establish.

A Supplier Verification Report draws on Chinese public company registry information — legal entity name, unified social credit code, registration status, establishment date, registered capital, legal representative, registered address and business scope — together with abnormal-operation indicators and public judicial or enforcement indicators where they are available. We then compare those records against the supplier's marketplace profile, website, email domain, phone numbers and claimed addresses.

Yes. The usual task is establishing which legal entity actually sits behind the Alibaba storefront, because the trading name on a platform profile, the company on the proforma invoice and the beneficiary on the bank instructions are not always the same. Platform badges such as Verified Supplier or Gold Supplier describe a platform status, not an independent assessment of the factory, so we check the underlying registration separately.

We can report factory-versus-trading-company indicators — business scope wording, registered capital, employee-count and address signals, and whether the registered address is an industrial or an office location. Documentary indicators point strongly but are not conclusive. The direct way to test the claim is a Live Factory Visit, where a representative attends the site you were given and shows you what is there.

A bilingual field representative attends the supplier site and opens a live video connection to you at an agreed time. You direct the camera: exterior and signage, production floor where allowed, machinery, warehouse, packaging area and sample close-ups, plus questions put to the supplier representative in Chinese. Afterwards you receive visit notes, footage where recording was permitted, and a list of questions that were not resolved. It starts at US$899.

Yes, and some will. A supplier may decline a visit entirely, restrict filming to certain areas, or exclude customer-specific lines and tooling for confidentiality reasons. We do not film covertly and we do not attempt to work around a refusal. What we do is report exactly what was refused, because a refusal is itself information you can weigh.

No. A live factory video visit is a visual verification service, not a formal factory audit, product inspection, legal due diligence, financial audit, or certification. An audit is a structured assessment of a supplier's management systems against a defined standard, performed by a qualified auditor and issued as a formal report. A live visit shows you visible conditions at one site at one moment, with you directing what to look at.

In the major manufacturing hubs — the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, Yiwu–Ningbo and the Qingdao area — a visit can typically be scheduled within 72 hours, subject to supplier confirmation, access approval and field-team availability. A 24–48 hour rush is possible at a 50% surcharge. Outside the base regions, scheduling is quoted case by case.

To start, send the supplier's company name as it appears on their documents, the marketplace profile or website link, and the quotation or proforma invoice if you have one. For a Pre-Deposit Risk Review we also need the payment instructions, including the beneficiary name and bank details. Do not send anything you are not authorized to share.

No. FactoryPass China charges fixed buyer-paid fees only and takes no commissions or kickbacks from the supplier being reviewed. We do not accept referral fees for introducing you to a supplier, and we do not have a supplier list to sell you. Our only commercial relationship is with you.