Supplier Verification & Factory Audits

A supplier is a company with a licence, a workshop, a capacity limit and a paper trail — all of which can be checked in a day by someone standing in Guangdong. Verification is the cheapest risk control in sourcing: it costs a fraction of a deposit, and it is the only stage where a bad supplier is still free to walk away from.

What we check

• Legal identity — business licence number, legal representative, registered capital, years in business, and whether the registered scope actually covers your product.
• Address match — the registered address against the workshop you would be buying from. A mismatch is the most common sign of a trading company presenting itself as a factory.
• Production reality — machinery and lines photographed on the visit, which processes are in-house and which are subcontracted, and how many lines would run your order.
• Capacity and loading — monthly capacity against their current order book, so your lead time is based on a queue, not an optimistic promise.
• Quality systems — QC staff, test equipment, first-article and in-line inspection practice, and how defects are dispositioned.
• Certifications and reports — ISO 9001, BSCI or social audits, product certifications and test files, verified by number rather than by logo.
• Export record — markets served, whether they hold their own export rights or go through a trading company, and how long they have shipped to your region.
• Commercial and legal flags — frequent changes of name or address, litigation records, unresolved disputes, and payment terms that signal cash-flow stress.

What the report contains

A dated document with photographs, licence data, capacity figures, the certification list, and a short assessment section: what the supplier is good at, where they are weak, and what we would insist on before placing your order.

Reports are written to be forwarded — to your business partner, your bank or your own customer if they ask how suppliers are qualified. Where we recommend against a supplier, the reasons are stated plainly.

Red flags we stop on

• The licence does not cover the product, or the workshop is not at the licensed address.
• Nobody on site can show the production process for your product — the work is entirely outsourced to an unnamed third party.
• Certificates cannot be traced to a file number, or the certificate names a different company.
• Capacity is already committed beyond your deadline, with no honest answer about the queue.
• The quotation is far below the belt's floor price with no explanation of what was left out.

None of these automatically ends a project — many are solvable by changing supplier, or by buying through a trading company with the risk priced in. The point is to know which one you are buying from.

How it fits with sourcing and inspection

Verification is stage one, sampling is stage two, inspection is stage three. See Sourcing & Procurement for the full process and Inspection & QC for what happens once goods are being produced.

Verification is also available on its own for buyers who have found their own supplier and simply want an independent check before sending a deposit — including suppliers met at a trade fair.

Common questions