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It is important to remember that without certification by a reliable third party authority there is no 100% sure way of verifying that a supplier is a manufacturer without visiting them. Even then you cannot be absolutely certain in some cases. I am drafting another post on the subject "Traveling to source supplies. Visiting manufacturers." and this will explain in more detail the difficulties.
I am assuming that like most people you will be using the popular B2B sourcing platforms, so this is what I would do:
First I would ignore Gold Supplier, Gold Star, Premium Member and other such status badges because they add nothing to the merit of suppliers displaying them. Begin your product search, filtering for manufacturers and for ones with Audit reports. The search result may show a large or small number depending on the product category.
Some websites list suppliers with "Audit" reports that are no more than the near worthless verification inspection that almost all of them carry out.
If the Audit report has been performed by Intertek, SGS, Sinotrust, or KRT Audit Corporation you can trust it but you must read the entire report. You may have to pay to view the report in some cases. A shortcut on Alibaba is to filter for suppliers displaying a red tick in a blue circle.
After selecting at least 8 or 10, preferably more, that look suitable, lodge a product inquiry with them and await responses. Some will identify their website, so that will allow you to start checking to see if they really are manufacturers. If they have a .cn website that makes your task a lot easier, because the Chinese government requires all companies to display an ICP number on their websites. If there is one, the business is genuine and a genuine business is far less likely to lie about the nature of the business, so their claim to be manufacturers is quite likely true. If no ICP number you should forget about dealing with them.
The website photos that you see will not necessarily be photos of the advertiser's premises. The photos of factory workers in rows and the impressive machinery may not belong to them either, so start checking phone numbers and addresses. If they have an office address, even if it is in HK, and a factory address elsewhere, you have probably found a manufacturer.
If you see the identical product listed by several suppliers all claiming to be the manufacturer, there is a good chance that they are all traders.
TOPIC HEADINGS PREVIOUSLY POSTED IN THIS THREAD:
Introduction. Dealing with myths and misinformation.
Some things you should know or do before you start product sourcing.
Traveling to source supplies. Do you need to visit China? Trade Fairs.
The difference between Alibaba and Aliexpress.
Great info you have given us here, this post is especially helpful as it allowed me to find out the supplier im working with is a trading company after all, although i dont mind because their communication with me through email is very fast and english is pretty good as well. Sometimes i deal with suppliers that take a few days to answer which really slows down the process and will not deal with anyone that takes that long to reply again.
I got a question though @Walter Hay
-what is the red tick with blue circle and where can this be found on alibaba? I cant seem to find it anywhere when i search for suppliers.
-Also generally how much more do the traders mark the item up as opposed to the actualy manufacturers?
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