Before a first order, a serious buyer audits the factory — on paper, by a third party, or in person. A supplier who welcomes that is telling you something; one who stalls is telling you something else. We would genuinely rather you verify us than take our word, so here is the checklist we hand buyers. Use it on us or on anyone else.
Is it actually a factory, and is it this one?
Start with the legal basics. Every real Chinese manufacturer holds a business license with a unified social credit code, and you can cross-check the company name and code on the national system at gsxt.gov.cn (or a tool like Tianyancha). The name on the license should match the name on your quotes, your contract and the bank account you are asked to pay. Trading companies sometimes present a factory's documents as their own — if the names do not line up, ask why before anything else. Genuine plants sit in industrial zones, not residential addresses; a quick check on a map is worth the minute it takes.
Social and compliance audits
The two audit standards you will see most are BSCI (amfori) and Sedex's SMETA. They cover labour, working hours, wages and safety. Two practical notes: check that the audited entity on the report's first page is the company you are buying from, not an affiliate, and check the date — an audit is a snapshot, and a two-year-old report is stale. If your retail customers require a social-audit clause, agree it before the order, not after.
Does the capacity match the story?
This is where an on-site or third-party visit earns its cost. The claimed staff count, floor area and machinery should match what you see. For context, our own site runs about 45,000 m² with 600-plus people — a mid-size plant, and we say so plainly on the about page. The point is not the size; it is that the number on the website matches the number on the floor. Look for machinery actually in use, not a showroom line, and a workforce consistent with the output you have been promised.
Quality on the line
An audit is not just paperwork — see how QC works. Ask what they check on a finished chair (gas-lift hold, all five casters, base integrity, mesh tension, torque on the bolts) and whether they use AQL sampling. Ask to see test reports, and remember the honest phrasing: a real factory builds to BIFMA / EN methods and arranges testing per order, rather than waving a compliance claim it cannot scope to your configuration. The buyer FAQ covers how we handle inspections and reports.
The red flags
A few signs are worth more than any certificate. A demand for 100% payment upfront instead of a normal deposit-and-balance is a serious warning. So is a price 20% under everyone else with no explanation, reluctance to allow a visit or third-party inspection, and a supplier who will only communicate through a personal email account. None of those is a deal-breaker on its own, but two together should slow you down.
What an audit cannot catch
An audit is a snapshot, and it is worth being clear about its limits. A clean audit tells you the factory is real, compliant and capable on the day the auditor stood there. It does not guarantee that the goods in your container match the sample you approved — that is what a pre-shipment inspection with AQL sampling is for, and it is a separate job from auditing the factory. The two work together: the audit qualifies the supplier before you commit, the inspection checks the order before it sails. A buyer who audits but never inspects, or inspects but never audits, has covered half the risk.
Start small, then scale
The other thing paperwork cannot replace is a first order run at a sensible size. We tell new buyers the same thing: prove the relationship on a modest order before you commit big volume. A first run on a standard platform with your branding lets you see how we handle a real order — communication, lead time, packing, the inspection — without betting the year on it. If it goes well, scale up; if something is off, you learned it cheaply. That is also why we are happy to start most buyers on ODM from our existing chair platforms rather than tooling for a custom design on order one. A clean audit plus a small, well-inspected first order tells you more about a supplier than any amount of certificates on a website, and it is how the longest relationships on our books actually began.
Come and audit us, send an agency, or start with the documents — we will hand over what you need. Reach the export desk through the contact form, or see how an OEM / ODM order runs end to end on the OEM / ODM page.