I'm an American who has been living/working in China for almost 15 years. I work for a trading company, and have used Alibaba hundreds of times to find reputable suppliers. Ask me anything in this thread, and I'll try to give you free advice for your project.

My father has a injection molding factory in China, we do OEM for Chinese trading companies, they all have alibaba, actually most Chinese good factory they only focus on production like us. We don’t have time to do promotions on the website. If you have Chinese friend, you can ask him to look up on Chinese official website to check if that company is trader or factory. For Chinese people, it is easy to see if he is trader.

It’s very common. Rules on sewage disposal vary by area. Plus, labor and rental conditions differ too — some places are easy to hire workers but have higher rent. So it’s normal for offices and factories to be apart.

My own clothing factory and office are not in the same location either.

A quick tip for you: most real factory workers don’t speak English well.

Good English usually means one of two things: the factory is large with a dedicated foreign trade team, or it’s a trader.

Good day to you my fellow Redditor.

You mentioned having a lot of experience sourcing on Alibaba and working with suppliers in China. I’ve been trying hard to find a real peptide manufacturer, but it’s been difficult. What’s the best way to tell whether a supplier is an actual manufacturer rather than a reseller, distributor, or trading company? I’m especially looking for one that can provide batch-specific COAs, HPLC purity data, mass spec identity confirmation, endotoxin and sterility testing, residual solvent and heavy metals reports, and matching lot numbers with the shipped product. I also understand that cGMP or ISO documentation, along with COAs and HPLC/MS testing, are important signs of a safer supplier.”

Reach out to the supplier and get their legal chinese name and registration number.

Those 4 have different Chinese names but share the English translation. Could be for a variety of reasons. Get their real Chinese name and search for that, then you can reach out to SGS or another similar company to verify further if the conversation you ahve with the factory doesn't help you feel better about the situation.

Hello. I am looking for an excellent supplier for beauty devices and products, specifically the Apollo Duet and quality HIFU device. Thank you.

What would be the best way to validate manufacturer certificates like FDA,GMP since lots of them photoshop the files.

forwarder companies, sorry for the late reply, and thanks in advance!

I’m looking for bottles for spices. I’m having trouble finding supplies on Alibaba.

Hi, I have an existing fishing shirt business in australia with proof of sales and a high demand product. I want to now start having them made in china and shipped here using RPET. Currently speaking to people on Alibaba and Made in China but I would LOVE a referral or some advice.

As I say; we already have the artworks and versions of the shirts I can supply. We do all sizes.

I have orders I need to fill, so I do need to get 100 made asap.

Any advice is appreciated

What's the standard vetting or due diligence? I have to assume the ratings and gold stars or whatever are meaningless

Hey, I’m looking to buy a Japanese style claw machine full size and am very overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. How do I find reputable suppliers and know they’re genuine etc? Thank you so much - also if you have any recommendations that would be awesome

Hey man, thanks for the amazing insights!

I run a console repair workshop in Italy and I'm looking for a reliable wholesale partner/trading company on Alibaba to move away from AliExpress.

Since you’ve been in China for 15 years, do you know any reputable suppliers in your network specializing in video game spare parts (PS4/PS5 power supplies, Nintendo screens, controller analogs)?

Since we do mixed, medium-sized orders across different categories, a solid trading company with good quality control would be perfect for us. Any names or recommendations? Thanks!