Service · verification and audits
Everything you know about a Chinese supplier before you visit comes from that supplier: the photographs, the certificates, the claimed capacity, the client list. All of it can be true. Some of it usually is not. The only way to find out is for someone to be in the building.
They get used interchangeably and they answer completely different questions. Most buyers do the first and assume they have done the second.
Level one
A desk check in the Chinese national register by USCC: does the company exist, when was it registered, what registered scope of business did it declare, who is the legal representative. The scope is declared by the company itself; licensing covers only specific regulated activities and appears separately, as administrative permits. Minutes of work, and it filters out outright fraud.
Level two
Someone walks the floor. Machines, staff, storage, quality control, documentation. This is the only step that answers whether the factory can actually make your product to your standard, repeatedly.
What people skip
Because it costs money and takes days, and because the register check felt like due diligence. The register says a company is real. It says nothing about whether it is any good.
Agreed with you in advance — a general audit and an audit for a regulated product are different jobs.
An audit is a snapshot of one day. It is a very good snapshot, and it is still a snapshot.
Verification is a desk check: we confirm in the Chinese state register that the company exists, when it was registered, what registered scope of business it declared and who signs for it. The scope is self-declared, so it says what the company put down for itself rather than what it has been permitted to do; licensing applies only to specific regulated activities and is shown separately, in the administrative permits. That takes minutes and filters out fraud. An audit is a visit: someone stands in the building and looks at machines, staff, storage, quality control and paperwork. Verification tells you the company is real; only an audit tells you it can make your product.
Yes. Our staff are based in China, so an audit is a working trip rather than a project that has to be commissioned from abroad. For a factory near Guangzhou or Yiwu we can usually be there within days.
That is the most common request we get. You keep your factory relationship; we go and look, and tell you what we saw. If we think the factory is fine, we say so — an audit that always finds problems is selling fear, not information.
By asking who issued them and confirming with the issuing body, and by checking that the certificate names the company you are dealing with rather than an affiliate or a former partner. Borrowed and expired certificates are common enough that this is a routine step rather than a suspicion.
A written report with photographs: what the factory actually produces, the equipment, the scale, the quality control it runs, the documentation it holds, and our view on whether it fits your product. If we would not place your order there, the report says that plainly and explains why.
Describe the product and the volume. We come back with a workable structure, a quote including landed cost, and an honest lead time — or with the reasons we would not take it on.