The Canton Fair (China Import and Export Fair) in Guangzhou is the largest sourcing trade show in the world. Three phases, tens of thousands of exhibitors, hundreds of thousands of products. Without a method, you come home with 800 unusable photos. Here is how to prepare your China sourcing trip and turn it into a real supplier database.
The 3 phases of the Canton Fair
The fair is split into three themed phases, a few days apart:
- Phase 1 — Electronics & equipment: consumer electronics, home appliances, lighting, vehicles, machinery, hardware, building materials.
- Phase 2 — Consumer goods & home: gifts, decoration, ceramics, kitchenware, furniture.
- Phase 3 — Textiles, apparel & health: textiles, shoes, bags, toys, office supplies, health products, food.
Pick your phase based on your category. Trying to "see everything" is the surest way to decide nothing.
Before you leave: the checklist
- Define 3 to 5 target categories and a buying budget per category.
- Prepare business cards (ideally bilingual English/Chinese).
- Install WeChat — it is the standard re-contact channel for suppliers.
- Set a reference currency and FX rate to compare prices on site.
- Bring a structured capture tool: photo + price + MOQ + supplier, in one place. This is what makes the difference back home.
On site: capture structure, not just the photo
The real problem of field sourcing is not note-taking, it is loss of structure. The moment the vendor quotes a price, the data exists. Three seconds later it is gone if the photo lands in your gallery without the price, the MOQ and the contact.
The rule: for every interesting product, capture in under 15 seconds the photo, the quoted price, the MOQ, and attach the supplier (business card or WeChat QR). The same product will be seen 3 to 6 times at different prices — you need to compare them afterwards.
After the fair: clean up in the evening, decide fast
The best time to clean your database is in the evening at the hotel, memory fresh: captures without price, without supplier, duplicates of the same product. That is where the quality of your trip is decided.
Going further
Fairloop was built for exactly this flow: capture in under 15 seconds, offer comparator, container-fill and landed-cost calculation — all offline, because there isn't always 4G in the halls. Discover Fairloop.
Read also: our beginner's guide to China sourcing and how to calculate landed cost.