Post in a founder community asking how to find a trustworthy sourcing agent in China and something predictable happens. Twenty replies arrive, and nineteen of them are people offering to be your sourcing agent. The one question you cannot answer by asking the market is the one where the entire market has an interest in the answer. That structural problem is worth naming, because the usual response — pick whoever seems most confident — is how buyers end up with an intermediary they cannot evaluate. What follows are questions that produce checkable answers, and the same questions applied to us.
The short answer
- You cannot evaluate an intermediary from their own account of themselves, and the channels where you ask are full of people selling the service. Useful questions are the ones whose answers can be checked against documents or behaviour rather than assertions.
- The four things people call a supplier — factory, trading company, sourcing agent, supply-chain manager — differ mainly in what they control and how they are paid. Ask how they are paid before asking what they are, because everyone claims the flattering label.
- Real red flags are structural: refusing to put the inspection standard in writing before production, a price with no visible structure, and pressure to pay to an account outside the agreed arrangement.
- Several things that look alarming are not: not being a factory, declining to name a facility on a first call, and charging for samples. Each has a legitimate explanation you can test.
The problem with asking the market about the market
The question is reasonable and the channel is not. A buyer wants to avoid a bad intermediary, so they ask a community, and the answers arrive from people whose business is being an intermediary. Nothing dishonest has to occur for this to fail — everyone answering is simply presenting themselves, and the buyer ends up choosing on tone rather than evidence. The person with the most confident message is not the one most likely to control a production line.
The way out is not to stop asking. It is to change what you ask for. A question like "are you a factory" produces a yes from everyone, because the word is elastic and the incentive is one-directional. A question like "who is named as exporter on the commercial invoice" produces a document, or produces a hesitation, and both are informative. The rest of this guide is a list of the second kind.
Ask how they are paid before asking what they are
The label matters less than the payment structure, because the structure determines the incentives you will live with. Someone paid through a margin on the goods makes more when the goods cost more, which is not automatically bad but is worth knowing. Someone paid a stated fee has a different pressure, and different reasons to argue with a facility on your behalf. Someone who will not describe the structure at all is telling you the answer is uncomfortable.
Ask it plainly: is your income a margin on the goods, a fee, or both, and can you show me which. You are not entitled to their cost sheet and should not expect it. You are entitled to know the shape. A buyer who understands the shape can read every later conversation correctly — including the ones where the intermediary pushes back on a facility, or does not.
The related question is what happens to money when something goes wrong. If bulk arrives outside specification, who pays for rework, and is that written down before the order or negotiated after it? Anyone can be reasonable about a hypothetical. The useful version is whether it exists in writing at the point the deposit is paid.
The questions that produce a checkable answer
Start with documents, because documents are hard to improvise. Who appears as exporter on the commercial invoice and the bill of lading, and does that entity match the one you have been talking to? Which company will you actually pay, and does its name match the contract? These are not accusations; they are the difference between knowing your counterparty and assuming it.
Then ask about the production side. Will you name the facility that will run this order, and if not, why not? Both answers can be legitimate — some intermediaries protect their facility relationships as their core asset, which is a real business reason, not a dodge. What matters is whether the reason is stated openly and whether it comes with something in exchange, such as an inspection you can commission independently. An intermediary who will not name the facility and will not accept third-party inspection has removed every way for you to verify anything.
Then ask about certification, carefully. Certifications such as OEKO-TEX, GOTS, GRS or a social audit are held by specific facilities for specific scopes and validity periods. An intermediary who presents them as their own has either misunderstood the system or is relying on you not knowing it. The correct answer names the holder, the scope and the expiry, and invites you to check the certificate number against the issuing body's own database.
Red flags that are actually red
Refusing to put the inspection standard in writing before production is the most reliable one. A defect is only a defect against an agreed standard; without a named acceptance level and a sealed reference sample, a disagreement after delivery becomes an argument about taste, and you will lose it. Anyone confident in their production will write this down, because it protects them from unlimited demands just as much as it protects you.
A price with no structure is the second. A single number with no breakdown of fabric, trims, packaging, sampling and testing, no stated incoterm and no quantity assumption cannot be compared with anything and cannot be checked when it changes. Transparency is not the same as the lowest price; a structured quotation that is higher tells you more than a lump sum that is lower.
Third, pressure to send payment to an account that does not match the contracting entity, or to move the conversation and the money off the arrangement you started on. This one is worth treating as decisive rather than as a question, and it has its own guide on this site.
Things that look like red flags and are not
Not being a factory is not a red flag. It is a description of a business model with real advantages when a range spans processes no single facility runs well — and real costs, in margin and in distance from the line. Someone who says plainly that they coordinate independent facilities is easier to evaluate than someone who claims to own production they do not, which is the far more common deception in this market.
Declining to name a facility on a first call is not necessarily evasion. Facility relationships take years to build and are the thing an intermediary actually owns. The question is what they offer instead: an independent inspection you commission, a named facility once an order is real, or a documented quality process. Refusing all three is different from refusing the first one.
Charging for samples is not a red flag either — it is usually the opposite. A free sample is normally a stock garment from a shelf, which shows what already existed rather than what they can make to your specification. Paying for a sample is how you get an object made for you, and it is the first honest data point in the entire relationship.
The same questions, applied to us
It would be inconsistent to publish this list without answering it. SEAMDANCE is a buyer-side sourcing and supply-chain management company in Xiamen, operating since 2018. We are not a factory and we do not own production; we coordinate independent partner facilities. Certifications belong to those facilities, never to us, and before an order is placed we check the holder, the scope and the validity against what that specific order requires. The published operating parameters are checkable: quotations within 24 hours, stock samples in 3–4 days, custom first samples in about 7, minimums from 100 pieces on stock programmes and 300–500 per style for custom development, and final inspection to AQL 2.5 before shipment.
The limits are the part worth reading. Coordination is the product, which means a buyer who wants a direct, named relationship with one factory should not use us — that buyer is paying for a layer they intend to remove. Our partner pool is not the whole market, so if a construction sits outside it the honest answer is a no during screening rather than a stretch after a deposit. And nothing above removes your own due diligence: the certificates you ask about are never ours, verifying them stays your work whoever coordinates, and an intermediary that tells you otherwise has just failed its own test.
Questions that produce a verifiable answer
| Ask this | Not this | What the answer reveals |
|---|---|---|
| Who is named as exporter on the invoice and bill of lading? | Are you a factory? | Whether the entity you talk to is the entity you transact with |
| Is your income a margin on goods, a fee, or both? | Do you offer good prices? | The incentives you will live with on every later decision |
| Will you name the facility, and if not, what do you offer instead? | Do you own your factory? | Whether any independent verification route exists at all |
| Who holds this certificate, for what scope, expiring when? | Are you certified? | Whether they understand that certification is facility-level |
| What inspection standard goes in writing before production? | Is your quality good? | Whether a defect will be measurable or merely arguable |
| If bulk is outside specification, who pays for rework? | What happens if there is a problem? | Whether the answer exists before the deposit or is invented after |
| What will you substitute if a material is unavailable, and when will you tell me? | Can you match this fabric? | How substitutions are handled when you are not watching |
Quick answers
Is it a bad sign if a sourcing agent will not tell me which factory they use?
Not on its own. Facility relationships are often the main asset an intermediary owns, and protecting them is a real business reason rather than a dodge. What matters is what they offer instead — an independent inspection you commission, or the facility named once an order is real. Refusing every verification route is the actual problem.
How do I know an intermediary is not just marking up a factory I could reach myself?
Ask how they are paid and expect a straight answer about the structure, not the numbers. Then decide whether what the layer does — screening, coordination across facilities, inspection, consolidation — is worth it for your range. For a single simple product from one factory it often is not, and a good intermediary will say so.
Can a sourcing agent hold OEKO-TEX or GRS certification?
Certification of materials and processes is issued to specific facilities for specific scopes and periods. An intermediary can hold certain chain-of-custody registrations, but presenting a facility's product certification as their own is a misunderstanding at best. The right answer names the holder, the scope and the expiry, and invites you to verify the number with the issuing body.
Where to produce follows the construction, the fabric base and the volume — not a general reputation about a country.
Open the programSourcing styles for your line? The 2026 catalogue lists every ready-to-develop style — colorways, materials, quote list built in.