On 1688, the price you see on the product page is a starting position, not a sticker price. Sellers list a number that leaves room to talk, and the real deal gets made in the chat window, where quantity, payment terms, customization and freight are all on the table at once. An overseas buyer who […]
Hiring a China buying agent means handing another company your money and, for long stretches, your judgment. The agent chooses suppliers, negotiates in a language you cannot read, pays deposits, and decides when an order is good enough to ship. That is a lot of trust to place in a verbal promise and a friendly […]
The moment money changes hands on 1688 is the moment most overseas buyers lose their negotiating power. You send a deposit, the factory starts production, and from that point forward every conversation is shaped by how much you have already paid and how much you still hold back. Get the structure right and the supplier […]
Pet supplies are one of the most underrated categories on 1688. The platform is packed with dog beds, cat towers, feeding bowls, leashes, grooming tools and chew toys at prices that routinely run 40 to 60 percent below what Western wholesalers quote. The problem is that a low price means nothing if the product fails […]
Home goods is one of the most forgiving categories a first-time importer can choose — and one of the most profitable when you get the sourcing right. Ceramics, glassware, storage, textiles and decor are consumed constantly, replaced regularly, and sold in every channel from marketplaces to boutique shops. China produces the overwhelming majority of these […]
China is the world’s electronics factory. Depending on the year you check, somewhere between 30% and 60% of the consumer electronics sold globally — headphones, smartwatches, chargers, smart home gadgets, and the components inside them — are manufactured in China, with a huge share of that production clustered in and around Shenzhen. For overseas buyers, […]
Wholesale clothing is one of the most popular categories overseas buyers source from China, and 1688 is where much of that clothing is actually traded. The platform holds listings from the wholesale markets of Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Huzhou and Dongguan, where Chinese domestic retailers and live-stream sellers buy their stock every day. For an overseas buyer, […]
On October 13, 2026, Alibaba’s wholesale platform 1688 announced that it has fully integrated Accio, Alibaba’s AI workbench for global e-commerce, and opened it directly to the platform’s entire buyer and factory base. According to the announcement reported by Pandaily on the same day, the change covers more than 100 million annual active buyers and […]
Importing from China can feel like a game reserved for companies with warehouses, six-figure budgets, and staff on the ground in Shenzhen or Yiwu. The truth is more practical than that: thousands of small businesses run lean China supply chains every day, and most of them do it with a China sourcing agent handling the […]
What “Full Cost” Really Means: Reading a China Buying Agent Invoice Most buyers never see the real question: not “how much does a China buying agent charge,” but “what exactly am I paying for.” A serious agent’s invoice has at least six distinct lines — service fee, sourcing, samples, quality inspection, consolidation and logistics, and […]
