Finding suppliers at the Canton Fair: list, questions, MOQ

The exhibitor list and how to use it

The organiser publishes the exhibitor list for each session on the official site (cantonfair.org.cn, under Buyer) and in the Canton Fair app, with a search across products, exhibitors and booth numbers and a filter by phase and section. It is complete about three to four weeks before the session opens and it is the only source for booth numbers. Its weakness is that it is a directory: company name, section, booth, a few product photos, no prices.

Two other sources fill that gap. Canton Fair Online, the organiser’s year-round platform, has exhibitor pages with product listings and a video-meeting function, and it persists between sessions. And our catalogue indexes the product listings of about 20,000 exhibitors, roughly 480,000 products, with the listed price, the MOQ, the supplier’s booth history and a landed-cost estimate for the US or Canada at your quantity, organised by the fair’s own sections, and a directory of the exhibitors by section with each company’s exhibition history. Build the shortlist there, then look up the booth numbers on the official list when it is published.

What to shortlist on

For each product, aim for twenty to forty candidates in the hall and pick them on what you can see before you meet them:

• Depth in your product. A supplier with sixty variants of one product family has a production line for it. A supplier with six products in twelve families has a sourcing office.
• Sessions attended. The number of Canton Fair sessions a company has exhibited at, which our supplier pages show. Ten sessions is five years of export sales and five years of being nominated by the delegation.
• Business type and registered year. Manufacturer or trading company, and how long they have been registered. A manufacturer registered in 2009 with 200 to 500 staff is a different conversation from a trading company registered in 2023.
• Certificates that match your market. ISO 9001 tells you they have a quality system on paper. BSCI or Sedex tells you a Western retailer audited them. Product certificates (CE, UL, FCC, EN 71, LFGB) tell you they have already sold this kind of product where you sell.
• Listed prices in a believable range. A quoted price a third below the cluster is a trader’s bait or a different specification. Either way, ask.

Sort the shortlist by hall and booth before you travel. The first-timer guide covers the routine in the hall.

Factory or trading company

Both exhibit, and both can be the right supplier. A trading company adds a margin (usually 10 to 20%) and in return gives you a smaller minimum, a single contact for several products, and someone whose job it is to chase the factory. A factory gives you the price and the control, and expects you to do the chasing. What you must not do is pay the factory-direct price expectation to a trader, or expect trader-level service from a factory.

The tells at the booth:

• The catalogue. A factory’s goes deep in one family; a trader’s goes wide.
• The business licence, which they will show you on their phone if asked. The scope of business (经营范围) for a factory includes production (生产, 制造); a trader’s says sales (销售), trade (贸易) or import and export (进出口).
• The address. An industrial zone in Foshan, Dongguan or Chaozhou is a factory; the 18th floor of a tower in Tianhe is not.
• The answer to “can I visit the factory on Wednesday?” A factory says yes and names the town. A trader says the factory is very far, or very busy, or asks which product.
• The certificate holder. If the CE certificate is in another company’s name, that company is the factory.

The questions worth asking

Ask the same questions at every booth and write down the answers in the same order. It takes eight to ten minutes and it is what makes the shortlist comparable a week later.

1. Is this product made in your own factory? Where? How many workers and production lines?
2. What is the price at my quantity, FOB which port, and what is the price at three times that quantity?
3. What is the MOQ per model and per colour, and what is it for a mixed order?
4. What is the standard export carton: dimensions, gross weight, units per carton? (This is the line that turns a price into a landed cost.)
5. What is the lead time from deposit, and from artwork approval if there is printing?
6. Which markets do you currently export this to? Who is a customer I might know?
7. Which certifications does this exact model hold, and can I see the certificate?
8. Can you do our branding or a modified version? Who owns the mould, and what does new tooling cost?
9. What are your payment terms, and do you accept an inspection before the balance is paid?
10. What is the sample price and lead time, and is it refunded against the order?
11. What is the warranty or defect allowance, and how are claims handled?
12. Who is my contact after the fair, and what is their WeChat?

How MOQ and pricing actually work

A minimum order quantity is not a rule, it is the point at which a production run, a material lot or a packaging print run becomes worth setting up. That is why it moves. A garment factory’s 1,000 pieces per colour is about the dye lot; a plastics factory’s 3,000 units is about the mould set-up; a ceramics factory’s one container is about the kiln schedule. Asking what drives the minimum tells you how to lower it: accept their stock colours, share a mould with a standard design, take a mixed pallet in their standard packaging.

Prices at the fair are quoted FOB (the goods loaded at a named Chinese port, you pay the ocean freight and everything after). Ask for FOB rather than EXW, because EXW leaves the inland trucking and export clearance with you, and rather than CIF, because a supplier’s freight quote is rarely the best one. Most suppliers will quote a ladder: one price at MOQ, a lower one at three to five times MOQ. Get both, and get them in writing on a proforma invoice before you compare.

Booth prices are list prices. The negotiation happens afterwards, with two or three competing quotes in hand, a sample approved and a factory visited. At that point 5 to 15% is normal on a first order; more than that usually means the first quote was a trader’s.

Payment terms

The standard is 30% deposit by bank transfer (T/T) on order, 70% against a copy of the bill of lading or after a pre-shipment inspection. For a first order with a new supplier, insist on the inspection clause. Never pay 100% up front, never pay to a personal bank account, and never pay to a company whose name is not the one on the proforma invoice. A letter of credit is worth the bank charges above about US$50,000. Paying through a marketplace escrow is fine when the supplier offers it; it does not replace checking who they are.

Following up so quotes arrive

Exhibitors leave the fair with hundreds of business cards and a backlog. Yours goes to the top of the pile if you message within 48 hours, on WeChat, with a photo of the product from their booth, your spec sheet, and a request for the specific quotation you agreed: model, quantity, FOB port, carton details, lead time, validity. Give a date by which you need it. A supplier who replies with a proforma invoice within a week is a supplier; one who replies with “please tell me your target price” is negotiating without having quoted, and one who does not reply has answered.

Put the replies in one sheet with the same columns as your booth notes. The right supplier is usually not the cheapest quote; it is the one whose quote, sample and answers are consistent with each other.

Verifying before the deposit

Before money moves, four checks, all of which are ordinary in China and none of which a good supplier objects to:

• The business licence against the registry. China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System is public and free; it shows the registered name, legal representative, capital, scope and any penalties. The name on the licence should be the name on the proforma invoice and the bank account.
• The certificate against the issuer. Test reports carry a number and the issuing lab; the lab will confirm it. A certificate for a different model, or in a different company’s name, is the most common thing our desk finds.
• The factory on video, or in person. A live walk-through with the rep’s phone: production lines, the warehouse, the product on the line. A factory that will not do this in 2026 has a reason.
• A pre-shipment inspection, by you, an agent or a third-party inspector, before the balance is paid.

The first three are what our desk does when you send us a supplier from the catalogue: we call the licensed number, pull the registry record, check the certificates and do the video walk-through in Chinese, and write down what worried us. Flat fee per supplier, paid by you; the supplier pays us no commission on your order.