Sourcing from China means turning a trade-show booth or an online product listing into a profitable order that lands in your warehouse. The hard part is not finding products — there are millions — it is not losing the information on the way: which price, which MOQ, which supplier, which real landed cost. This guide maps the whole journey, from finding to ordering, and points to the deep guides for each step.
What "sourcing from China" actually means
Sourcing is the set of decisions that take you from a product need to a validated supplier and a purchase order. In China, that covers three things: finding suppliers able to make what you want, comparing their offers on an honest basis (same product, same quantity, same Incoterm), and securing the order (sample, quality, logistics, payment).
China is still the world's workshop because it concentrates entire supply chains — raw materials, components, assembly — in a handful of industrial clusters. That means many suppliers for the same product, and therefore wide price gaps for comparable quality. The whole craft of sourcing is exploiting that gap without picking the wrong supplier.
The two main channels
You source in two ways: on the ground (trade fairs) or online (B2B marketplaces). They are complementary.
| Criterion | Trade fairs (Canton Fair, Yiwu) | B2B marketplaces (Alibaba, Made-in-China) |
|---|---|---|
| Contact | Face to face, sample in hand | Remote, by messaging |
| Trust | You see the factory, product, person | You rely on ratings and badges |
| Discovery | Serendipity: products you weren't looking for | Keyword search |
| Negotiation | Immediate, on the spot | Back-and-forth in writing |
| Cost of access | Flight + hotel + time | Free |
| Main risk | Losing info in the show floor flow | Filtering the serious from the fake on screen |
Trade fairs
The Canton Fair (China Import and Export Fair) in Guangzhou is the largest import-export fair in the world. Its 139th spring session runs from April 15 to May 5, 2026, in three themed phases (official source): electronics and equipment (April 15–19), consumer goods and home (April 23–27), and textiles, apparel and health (May 1–5). Our Canton Fair 2026 guide breaks down the phases, halls and logistics.
The Yiwu wholesale market (Yiwu International Trade City) plays a different role: it is a permanent market of more than 75,000 shops across five districts, offering over 2 million small-commodity items (source). You can go year-round, for small goods, gifts, décor and accessories. See our Yiwu market guide.
B2B marketplaces
Alibaba, Made-in-China, Global Sources: you search by keyword, compare listings, request quotes. This is ideal to prepare a trip (scope the categories and price ranges) or to reorder remotely. The risk is the reverse of the fair: instead of losing info in the flow, you struggle to tell a real manufacturer from a mere trader. Always cross-check sources and get a sample before committing to volume.
The end-to-end workflow
Sourcing is a chain of eight stages. Each has a precise goal and a fitting tool. If one stage breaks, everything downstream is wrong — comparing offers captured without an MOQ, for instance, means nothing.
| Stage | Goal | Tool / method |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Find | Identify credible suppliers | Fairs, marketplaces, referrals |
| 2. Capture | Fix photo + price + MOQ + supplier, lose nothing | Structured capture < 15 s |
| 3. Organize | Group by product and by supplier | Field database |
| 4. Compare | Put the same product side by side | Comparator, reference currency |
| 5. Negotiate | Lower the price, clarify the Incoterm | Direct chat / WeChat |
| 6. Sample | Validate real quality | Sample order |
| 7. Cost | Compute landed cost | Landed-cost + CBM calc |
| 8. Order | Issue the purchase order | PO + production tracking |
Find
Scoping happens at the fair (above) or online. Goal: a short list of suppliers per category, not a directory. Three solid offers beat thirty soft leads.
Capture and organize
This is the weak link of field sourcing, and the core of this guide (see below). The idea: the moment the seller quotes a price, the information exists; you must fix it immediately, structured, before it dilutes. Then you organize: the same product seen at six suppliers must be grouped so it can be compared. Preparing all this upstream is part of organizing a sourcing trip.
Compare
To compare honestly, bring every offer back to a reference currency and the same Incoterm. A FOB price in yuan and an EXW price in dollars are not comparable as-is. See how to compare supplier quotes.
Negotiate, sample, cost, order
Negotiation is about price as much as MOQ and Incoterm. The sample validates quality before any volume. Costing turns a factory price into a landed cost — the only real basis for a decision (below). Finally, the purchase order freezes everything: reference, quantity, price, Incoterm, lead times.
The key concepts, defined
Five notions recur at every stage. Here is a one-line definition of each, with a link to its dedicated guide.
- MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity): the smallest quantity a supplier will produce for one reference. Often the real constraint, ahead of price. See the beginner's guide to China sourcing.
- Incoterms: the ICC Incoterms® 2020 rules that define who pays and who bears the risk at each transport step. Detail in our Incoterms guide.
- EXW (Ex Works): the seller makes the goods available at the factory; the buyer handles everything else, including loading and export clearance.
- FOB (Free On Board): the seller delivers on board the vessel at the departure port; sea freight only.
- CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight): the seller pays freight and insurance to the arrival port.
- HS code (Harmonized System): the 6-digit international customs classification from the WCO, used by more than 200 countries to set customs duties. Every imported product has one.
- CBM (Cubic Meter): the volume in cubic meters of a carton or an order. It drives container fill and freight allocation. See the CBM guide and the CBM calculator.
- Landed cost: the true cost of a product once it reaches you — factory price + freight + customs duties + VAT + insurance + fees. It is the only number that tells you whether a product is profitable. See the landed-cost guide and the landed-cost calculator.
Freight and fixed container costs are allocated pro rata to each line's CBM: a bulky product "consumes" more container and must carry a larger freight share. A landed cost can end up 50–90% above the FOB price — which is exactly why you should never decide on factory price alone.
How not to lose information on the floor
This is what separates a profitable trip from a wasted one. A buyer sees 300 to 800 products in three days. If all they do is snap photos, they come home with a mute gallery: images with no price, no MOQ, no supplier attached. The same product, seen 3 to 6 times at different prices, becomes impossible to compare.
The rule is simple: for each interesting product, capture in under 15 seconds the photo, the quoted price, the MOQ, and attach the supplier (business card or WeChat QR) — all in one place and offline, because the halls don't always have 4G. In the evening at the hotel, memory fresh, you clean up: captures without a price, duplicates, suppliers with no contact.
This is exactly the flow Fairloop was built for: structured capture in under 15 seconds, an offer comparator in a reference currency, container-fill and landed-cost computation, and a purchase order — all offline. See pricing ($99/year, 24h trial).
FAQ
Should I travel to China or can I do everything online?
Both work, for different reasons. Online, you scope and reorder without leaving your desk. On the ground, you see the factory, touch the sample, negotiate directly, and discover products no keyword would have surfaced. Most serious importers combine the two: online scoping, on-site validation.
What budget should I plan for a first sourcing trip?
Count the flight, the hotel (5 to 10 days around a Canton Fair phase or a week in Yiwu), meals, and a sample budget. The investment pays off as soon as your purchase volume passes a few thousand dollars, because the price gap negotiated face to face quickly covers the cost of the trip.
Why is the booth price never the final price?
Because it depends on quantity, Incoterm and negotiation. A "$2" price may be EXW without export packaging, or FOB with a high MOQ. Always bring every offer to the same Incoterm and your reference currency, then compute the landed cost before you commit.
How many suppliers should I compare per product?
Three to six is enough. Below three, you lack a price benchmark; above six, you drown without deciding better. What matters is that it is the same product — same specs, same quantity — compared on a uniform basis.
What makes a sourcing trip fail?
Loss of structure. Coming home with hundreds of photos that carry no price and no supplier makes all the work unusable. The fix is methodological: capture photo + price + MOQ + supplier at the same moment, offline, then sort that same evening.
Read also: the Canton Fair 2026 guide, the Yiwu market guide, and how to calculate landed cost.