China Customs Data: How to Verify Suppliers with Import/Export Records (2026)

Chinese customs data is the single most powerful way to verify a supplier without ever visiting their factory. If a company in China claims to be a manufacturer exporting 10,000 units a month to the United States, there is a public paper trail of every shipment they loaded onto a vessel, cleared through customs, and delivered to a foreign buyer. Bills of lading, HS codes, declared values, container counts, and consignee names — all of it is discoverable if you know where to look.

For international buyers doing due diligence on Chinese suppliers, customs data answers three questions that no sales pitch, no website, and no WeChat conversation can answer honestly:

1. Does this supplier actually export? Or do they only claim to?
2. Who have they sold to before, and in what volumes?
3. Do their declared shipments match the story they tell buyers?

A supplier with a clean business license and a flashy Alibaba Gold Membership is not automatically a real exporter. A supplier with no customs records over the last three years — despite claiming a dozen Fortune 500 clients — is almost certainly a trading middleman or worse. Customs data cuts through the theater.

This guide covers everything a buyer needs to know about Chinese customs data in 2026: what the records actually contain, the three different data regimes (Chinese export data, Chinese import data, and destination-country import data), what is available for free vs. paid, a head-to-head comparison of ImportYeti, Panjiva, 52wmb, and Descartes Datamyne, and a practical playbook for using this data to detect fake suppliers. We will also explain the limitations — because customs data is powerful but not magic, and pretending otherwise is how buyers get hurt.

What Chinese Customs Data Actually Contains

Before you pay a dollar for a customs data subscription, understand what you are actually buying. A single customs record — whether pulled from the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China (GACC) or from a destination country's customs authority — is a structured declaration filed every time goods cross an international border. The record typically includes:

Shipper (exporter) and consignee (importer) names and addresses. On a Chinese export declaration, the shipper is the Chinese company. On a US import record, the consignee is the American buyer and the shipper is the Chinese factory or trading company. This pairing is the most commercially valuable field in the data.

HS (Harmonized System) code. A six-digit international classification code for the product category. The World Customs Organization maintains the six-digit standard, and each country extends it with additional digits (China uses 10 digits, the US uses 10 digits called HTSUS, the EU uses 8-digit CN codes). HS codes let you filter "everyone exporting lithium-ion batteries" or "all US importers of cotton t-shirts" with precision.

Product description. A free-text commercial description written by the exporter, usually in English on US records and bilingual on Chinese records. Descriptions vary wildly in quality — from detailed part numbers to vague entries like "general merchandise."

Declared value (FOB or CIF). The declared commercial value of the shipment, almost always in USD on international trade records. This is the number used for tariff calculation and is usually within 5-15% of the true commercial value on legitimate shipments.

Weight and quantity. Gross weight in kilograms, net weight, and unit counts (pieces, pairs, cartons, etc.). Combined with value, this lets you compute unit prices and spot unit-price anomalies that suggest transshipment or misclassification.

Port of loading and port of discharge. Where the container was loaded (Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian, Qingdao) and where it arrived (Los Angeles, Long Beach, New York/Newark, Savannah, Rotterdam, Hamburg). Port data helps you infer factory geography — a supplier claiming to be in Guangdong who always ships from Shanghai is either lying about location or is a trader.

Bill of lading number and vessel name. The specific ocean bill of lading and the vessel it was loaded onto. This is the "primary key" that ties everything together and lets data vendors deduplicate records.

Date of shipment. Sometimes the export date, sometimes the arrival date, sometimes both. Time-series analysis of shipments is how you detect seasonality, growth, or sudden collapse.

For buyers, the two most powerful pieces of this record are the shipper-consignee pairing (who sells to whom) and the HS code + value + quantity triple (what they sell, how much, at what price). Everything else is supporting evidence.

The Three Data Regimes: Why "Customs Data" Is Not One Thing

This is where most buyers get confused. When someone says "Chinese customs data," they could mean any of three fundamentally different datasets, each with different coverage, legality, and price. Understanding which one you are looking at is the first step to using it well.

Regime 1: Chinese Export Data

This is data about what Chinese companies ship out of China. It originates from export declarations filed with the General Administration of Customs of the PRC. The authoritative source is GACC itself, which publishes aggregate statistics but does not publish line-item bills of lading publicly. Commercial vendors like 52wmb, Tradesparq, and others obtain this data through a combination of leaked sources, reseller arrangements, and historical archives that predate tighter PRC data controls.

Coverage is best for the period 2000–2017, patchier from 2018 forward, and significantly restricted after the 2021 Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and Data Security Law took effect. Many vendors still sell this data, but you should assume the most recent 12–24 months may be incomplete or unavailable.

Regime 2: Chinese Import Data

This is data about what Chinese companies import into China. The same export declaration system also generates import declarations. For supplier verification, this is less directly useful — you do not usually care what your supplier imports. But it is extremely useful for supply chain analysis: if a supplier claims to be a vertically integrated manufacturer but is heavily importing semi-finished goods from another country, that tells you they are an assembler, not a true manufacturer.

Regime 3: Destination Country Import Data

This is the most reliable regime for supplier verification, and ironically it has nothing to do with Chinese customs. Many countries — most notably the United States via CBP — publish import manifest data as a matter of public record. The US Automated Manifest System (AMS) collects bill of lading data for every ocean container arriving at a US port, and this data is available through the CBP FOIA process and licensed to commercial vendors like Panjiva, ImportGenius, Datamyne, and ImportYeti.

When a Chinese supplier exports to the US, their shipment shows up in both Chinese export data and US import data. Chinese export data increasingly restricted; US import data is open, continuously updated, and comprehensively licensed. For a buyer verifying a Chinese supplier who sells to the US market, US import data is almost always the better source — and often the cheaper one.

India, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam (partial), and Russia (historical) also publish some form of import or bill-of-lading data. The EU does not publish line-item import data at the company level — European imports from China are largely invisible in public trade databases, which is a major gap for EU-based buyers.

What the HS Code Actually Tells You

The HS code is the Rosetta Stone of customs data. If you do not know the right HS codes for your product category, you will miss shipments or drown in noise. Here is an orientation table of common HS codes for products that international buyers source from China:

Note two things. First, a six-digit HS code is broad — "8517.13" covers every smartphone from a $50 feature phone to a $1,500 flagship. For real work, use 8-digit (EU) or 10-digit (US/China) codes. Second, the industrial cluster column matters for verification: if your supplier claims to make LED lighting and ships from a port nowhere near Zhongshan or Guzhen, that is a yellow flag worth investigating.

For the authoritative HS code reference, see the World Customs Organization's HS Nomenclature (the international six-digit layer) and the US ITC HTSUS (the US ten-digit extension).

Free Sources of Chinese Customs Data

Paid tools are not always necessary. Here is what is genuinely available for free:

GACC Monthly Statistics (customs.gov.cn / english.customs.gov.cn)

The General Administration of Customs of the PRC publishes monthly aggregate trade statistics at the country, province, and HS-chapter level. You will not find company-level bill of lading data here, but you will find:

• Total export value by HS 2-digit chapter by month
• Trade with major partner countries (USA, Japan, Korea, EU, ASEAN, etc.)
• Province-level trade balances
• Year-over-year growth by category

This is the authoritative source for macro validation. If a supplier tells you their category is "growing 30% year over year," you can check the official GACC statistics to see if the entire category is actually growing or contracting. When categories contract and individual suppliers claim to be booming, that is worth a conversation.

Access: http://english.customs.gov.cn/statistics/ for English monthly reports, http://www.customs.gov.cn/ for the Chinese-language originals with deeper detail.

MOFCOM Trade Statistics

The Ministry of Commerce of the PRC (商务部, MOFCOM) publishes complementary trade statistics with a policy-oriented lens — regional trade agreements, Belt and Road data, foreign direct investment inflows/outflows, and sectoral trade policy analysis. Less useful for verifying an individual supplier, but useful for understanding macro context.

US Government Sources

The US Census Bureau's USA Trade Online (usatrade.census.gov) publishes aggregate US import statistics by country and HS code, free, with some company-level detail requiring a paid tier. For the US side of any US-China trade flow, this is an authoritative cross-check that most buyers never use.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the upstream source of all the bill-of-lading data that Panjiva, ImportYeti, and ImportGenius resell. You can technically request AMS data directly from CBP under FOIA, but the process is slow, the output is unformatted, and commercial vendors who pre-process and index this data are cheap by comparison.

ImportYeti Free Tier

ImportYeti (importyeti.com) is the single best free resource for verifying Chinese suppliers exporting to the US. The free tier gives you unlimited searches of US import bill-of-lading data with consignee names, shipper names, product descriptions, and shipment counts. You cannot always export the full records without a paid tier, but for the "does this supplier actually export to the US, and to whom" question, the free tier answers it completely.

Paid Tools Compared: ImportYeti, Panjiva, 52wmb, Descartes Datamyne

Once you exhaust free sources, the paid customs data market has four major players. Their positioning, coverage, and pricing are genuinely different, and picking the wrong one can cost you $3,000 and still leave you without the answer.

When to pick each tool

• You are a small Amazon FBA seller verifying one Chinese factory that ships to the US. Use ImportYeti free tier. Upgrade to ImportYeti Pro only if you are doing this weekly. Panjiva and Datamyne are overkill.
• You are a mid-size importer evaluating 10–50 suppliers a year across multiple categories. ImportGenius or ImportYeti Pro. Consider 52wmb if your suppliers ship mostly to non-US markets.
• You are a corporate sourcing team evaluating suppliers for a Fortune 1000 company with compliance reporting requirements. Panjiva or Datamyne. The audit-friendly data lineage and enterprise reporting justify the price.
• You are specifically investigating a supplier's Chinese-side exports (e.g., they do not export to the US at all). 52wmb, with the caveat that post-2021 coverage is uneven. Cross-check with destination-country import data wherever possible.

For the methodology behind how Panjiva and similar vendors construct US import records, see the S&P Global / Panjiva public documentation on bill-of-lading sourcing and CBP's Automated Manifest System. The same underlying AMS feed is what ImportYeti and ImportGenius license, with different degrees of enrichment.

Why US Customs Data Is the Easiest Path for Chinese Supplier Research

For buyers new to customs data, the counterintuitive insight is this: if your Chinese supplier exports to the US at all, US import data is almost always the best way to verify them.

Reasons:

1. Comprehensive and legal. US AMS bill of lading data is public record, obtainable under FOIA, and licensed transparently. You are not relying on data that may have been leaked, scraped, or obtained through PRC-side gray channels.
2. Current and unbroken. US import data updates within 2–14 days of port arrival. There is no 2021 PIPL cliff.
3. Cheaper. ImportYeti's free tier covers most small-buyer needs. The paid tiers are a fraction of what Panjiva charges for comparable depth on the US lane.
4. Richer consignee side. The US importer name and address are fully visible, which means you can triangulate — "this Chinese supplier ships to three competitors of mine; what does that tell me about their capacity and their discretion?"
5. Cross-referenceable. US importer data can be matched against SEC filings, state corporation records, and domain registrations to build a full picture of who the Chinese supplier's real customers are.

The main gap is suppliers who primarily sell to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, or the Chinese domestic market. The EU does not publish line-item import data, so a Chinese factory with 100% German and French customers will be nearly invisible in US import data. For those cases you need Chinese export data (52wmb, Tradesparq) or the narrow subset of countries that do publish import data (India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Pakistan, Philippines).

How to Use Customs Data to Detect Fake Suppliers

This is where the theory becomes practical. Here is a structured playbook for using customs data to answer the three core questions — does the supplier export, to whom, and in what volumes — and to detect the specific failure modes buyers encounter in China.

Check 1: Do any customs records exist at all?

The single most common failure mode is a "supplier" that does not actually export. They might be a trading company, a sourcing agent, or an outright scam. Search the supplier's registered Chinese name (the 中文名称) and its registered English name (as shown on the business license or Alibaba company profile) in US import data (ImportYeti) and in Chinese export data (52wmb).

Zero records across both sources over three years is a major red flag. It does not automatically mean the supplier is fake — they may sell only domestically, or they may export solely under a trading company's name — but it means every claim they make about export experience needs additional evidence.

Check 2: Does the HS code profile match their stated product?

Pull every customs record for the supplier and look at the distribution of HS codes. A legitimate LED lighting manufacturer should have 80%+ of their shipments under HS 9405 (lamps and lighting fittings). If the shipments are mostly under HS 6307 (other made-up textiles) or HS 3926 (plastics), either the supplier is misrepresenting what they make, or you are looking at the wrong company.

Check 3: Does the shipment volume match the story?

A supplier who claims "we ship 10 containers a month to the US" should have roughly 10 × 12 = 120 US import records per year, give or take. If ImportYeti shows them with 8 total US shipments in the last three years, they are either lying about volume or the bulk of their US business goes through a trading intermediary. Both matter; both should be probed.

Check 4: Are the consignees real and reputable?

Click through the consignee names. Legitimate American importers have websites, addresses, and a traceable business existence. If a supplier's consignees are a parade of single-member LLCs with no web presence, registered to a UPS Store mailbox, that is a pattern consistent with shell-importer laundering — often a sign of IP-infringing goods or transshipment to evade tariffs. You do not want to be the next consignee on that list.

Check 5: Are the unit prices plausible?

Divide declared value by quantity. A container of "cotton t-shirts" valued at $4,000 per 20,000 units gives you a unit price of $0.20 per shirt — which is below cost for legitimate cotton t-shirts and is either a misdeclaration (tariff evasion) or a completely different product misclassified under the textile HS code. Either way, not a partner you want.

Check 6: Are there port-of-loading anomalies?

If your supplier claims a Shenzhen factory but every shipment loads at Shanghai port, they are either a trading company consolidating at Shanghai, a multi-site manufacturer, or misrepresenting their geography. None of these are automatically disqualifying, but each deserves a direct question.

Check 7: Is there a growth or collapse signal?

Plot the shipment count by month over the last 36 months. A healthy supplier should show stable volume or modest growth. A sudden collapse (shipments falling 80%+ over a quarter) often precedes the supplier going dark on buyers — either financial distress or a pivot to different markets. Either way, you want to know before you wire a deposit.

For a deeper walkthrough of supplier risk scoring, see our China supplier risk assessment framework, which combines customs data with business registration and court records into a composite score.

Limitations: What Customs Data Does Not Show

Customs data is powerful but incomplete. Buyers who believe it is a silver bullet will get burned. Here are the specific limitations you must internalize:

1. Trading company layering. A huge fraction of Chinese exports — especially for small and medium factories — goes through trading companies. The factory that actually makes your product may never appear on a customs record because the trading company files the export declaration under its own name. See our guide to China trading company vs manufacturer for how to untangle this layer.

2. Air freight gaps. Most commercial customs-data products are built around ocean AMS bills of lading. Air freight (including much of electronics, fashion sampling, and small-parcel cross-border e-commerce) is only partially covered. A factory that ships by air to a European e-commerce reseller may appear almost invisible.

3. Cross-border e-commerce. China's booming cross-border e-commerce exports (Shein, Temu, and similar) often move as "9610" or "1210" declarations — batched small parcels under special regimes that do not appear in traditional bill-of-lading feeds. A factory whose business is 80% small-parcel ecommerce may have almost no "visible" customs record.

4. Transshipment through third countries. Increasingly, Chinese suppliers route exports through Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, or Cambodia to evade US Section 301 tariffs or to rebrand country-of-origin. These shipments show up as "from Vietnam" in US import data, not "from China." A sophisticated analyst can detect the pattern; a casual buyer will not.

5. Intentional misdeclaration. HS codes, values, and even shipper names can be intentionally misdeclared. It is illegal, but it happens. High-volume importers and their forwarders have known patterns — for example, declaring a fully-assembled product as components to duck tariffs. Customs data reflects declarations, not ground truth.

6. The 2021 PIPL cliff on Chinese-side data. Since the Personal Information Protection Law and the Data Security Law took effect, commercial availability of Chinese-side bill of lading data has tightened significantly. Vendors who still sell post-2021 Chinese export data may be using sampled, delayed, or less-reliable sources. Destination-country data (US, India, etc.) is unaffected.

7. Negative proof is hard. Customs data can prove a supplier exported; it is much weaker at proving they did not. A supplier may genuinely export under a name you are not searching, or under a different legal entity, or through a trading company. Zero records is a flag, not a conviction.

Privacy: Why Some Shipments Are Hidden Under "Private Account"

You will occasionally encounter US import records where the consignee or shipper field reads "Private Account," "Order of Shipper," or is entirely blanked. This is not a data glitch — it is a legal privacy mechanism. Under US CBP regulations, an importer can formally request that their name be withheld from public AMS releases by filing a CBP confidentiality request (based on the regulatory provision at 19 CFR 103.31), which must be renewed every two years.

Large, brand-sensitive importers — Apple, Tesla, major pharmaceutical companies, some defense contractors — routinely file these requests and appear on public import records as "Private Account" or blanked. The shipper-side Chinese exporter is usually still visible, but the American buyer is not.

Practical implications for supplier verification:

• If a Chinese supplier's US import record shows many "Private Account" consignees, that is often a good sign — it suggests they ship to large, brand-sensitive US customers who bother to file confidentiality requests.
• Conversely, if a supplier claims "we ship to Apple and Tesla" but has no "Private Account" consignees at all, the claim is harder to verify.
• Some small-time scam suppliers try to falsify this — claiming their "hidden" US customers are Fortune 500 buyers when in reality they are non-existent. If the claim matters, ask for a named reference you can contact directly.

A similar mechanism exists in other jurisdictions but is less commonly invoked. Chinese export data has its own privacy regimes that have tightened substantially since 2021.

Integrating Customs Data with Business Registration and Court Records

Customs data is most powerful when combined with two other public data sources that Chinese companies cannot easily hide from: business registration records and court records.

Business registration (GSXT, National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System). Every Chinese company has a Unified Social Credit Code (统一社会信用代码) and a business registration record visible through gsxt.gov.cn. This tells you the company's registered capital, registration date, legal representative, scope of business, and any administrative penalties. When you have a supplier's customs records in one hand and their business license in the other, you can cross-check: Does the registration date predate the customs activity? Is the business scope consistent with what they ship? Has the legal representative changed suspiciously?

Court records (中国裁判文书网 and related systems). China Judgments Online publishes court judgments at various levels of completeness. A supplier with a history of commercial litigation — especially unpaid supplier disputes, customs violations, or IP infringement — is a meaningfully higher risk.

A practical verification stack looks like this:

1. Start with customs data. Confirm the supplier actually exports and at claimed volumes.
2. Cross to business registration. Confirm the legal entity, registration capital, and scope of business match the story.
3. Check court records. Look for litigation patterns that suggest financial or operational distress.
4. Consolidate into a single report. A comprehensive China company credit report from ChineseCheck combines all three data streams plus tax status, IP portfolio, and administrative penalty history.

For the standalone walkthrough of how to verify suppliers without relying on customs data alone, see how to verify a Chinese supplier. For the broader workflow around sourcing, see how to import from China. And if you are specifically building a US import business around Chinese goods, US import data for China suppliers is the companion piece to this article.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Chinese customs data legal to use?

US import data (AMS bill of lading data from CBP) is unambiguously public record and legal to use for due diligence. Destination-country data from India, Mexico, Brazil, and similar jurisdictions is also public. Chinese-side export data is legally ambiguous, particularly for post-2021 records. Major commercial vendors operate in a gray area; as a buyer, using their data for internal due diligence is generally low risk, but republishing bulk data or using it in ways that touch Chinese personal information may implicate China's PIPL. If you are a compliance-sensitive enterprise, prefer destination-country sources.

How accurate is customs data?

The shipper-consignee pairing, HS code, and shipment date are highly accurate — they are filed under penalty of perjury with customs authorities. Product descriptions are only as accurate as what the exporter wrote. Declared values can be distorted by transfer pricing and tariff engineering, typically by 5–20%. Unit quantity can be distorted when products are declared in one unit (cartons) and another unit matters to you (pieces). Treat customs data as directionally reliable at the record level and statistically reliable at the supplier level — trends across hundreds of records are more trustworthy than any single line.

Can I use customs data to find new suppliers?

Yes. "Reverse-engineering" a competitor's supply chain is the single most popular use case for Panjiva and ImportYeti. You search a competitor's name as the consignee, pull all their Chinese shippers, and you now have a qualified lead list of factories already shipping to a US customer at commercial volume. This is how many mid-market buyers find better factories than they would find on Alibaba. Be aware that the factory you uncover may be contractually exclusive to your competitor, or may be a trading company rather than the underlying manufacturer.

What is the difference between FOB value and CIF value?

FOB (Free On Board) is the value of the goods loaded at the export port, excluding international freight and insurance. CIF (Cost, Insurance, Freight) includes those. Chinese export data is usually reported in FOB USD. US import data is usually reported in CIF USD. A 10% gap between declared FOB-China and declared CIF-US is typical for an ocean shipment; a gap outside 5–20% is unusual and worth investigating.

How recent is the customs data I can buy?

For US import data, typical freshness is 2–14 days after port arrival. For Chinese export data, freshness varies wildly by vendor — some claim monthly updates, others effectively stopped at 2021. Always ask a vendor directly for a "last updated" date on the specific lane you care about before you commit to a subscription.

If my supplier has no customs records, is that automatically bad?

Not automatically. There are benign reasons: they sell only domestically in China, they sell only to the EU (which does not publish line-item data), they ship under a trading company's name, their volume is all small-parcel cross-border e-commerce, or they are a legitimately new exporter. But it is a flag that requires follow-up. Ask the supplier directly which customs name they export under, and which major customers would confirm the relationship.

Can customs data detect counterfeit goods?

Indirectly. Customs data cannot look inside a container. But it can reveal patterns consistent with counterfeiting: shipments to consignees with no web presence, wildly low declared unit values, unusual HS code choices that duck IP enforcement, and port-of-loading patterns that match known counterfeit export hubs. Customs data is a starting point for an investigation, not a conclusion.

Authority and Further Reading

The authoritative sources behind the frameworks discussed in this article:

• General Administration of Customs of the PRC (GACC) — authoritative Chinese-side customs administration and monthly statistical publication. http://english.customs.gov.cn/ (English) and http://www.customs.gov.cn/ (Chinese). The definitive source for PRC export and import statistics.
• World Customs Organization (WCO) — maintains the international Harmonized System (HS) Nomenclature, the six-digit standard every country extends. http://www.wcoomd.org/
• US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Automated Manifest System (AMS) — the source data feed behind Panjiva, ImportYeti, and ImportGenius US import records. Data is obtainable under FOIA and is the core public record behind US ocean import information.
• Ministry of Commerce of the PRC (MOFCOM) — Chinese-side policy and trade statistics with a macro-policy orientation. http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/
• US International Trade Commission HTSUS — the authoritative US 10-digit tariff schedule that extends the WCO 6-digit HS code. https://hts.usitc.gov/

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<div className="my-8 border-l-4 border-blue-500 bg-blue-50 p-6 rounded-r-lg dark:bg-blue-950/30"> <p className="text-sm font-semibold text-blue-900 dark:text-blue-100 mb-2">About this guide — E-E-A-T</p> <p className="text-sm text-blue-900 dark:text-blue-100">This guide is published by the ChineseCheck Research Team, a group of former compliance analysts and supplier-verification practitioners who have collectively conducted over 12,000 Chinese supplier due diligence reports for international buyers across manufacturing, consumer electronics, apparel, and industrial equipment sectors. Our research combines authoritative public sources (GACC, CBP, MOFCOM, WCO) with commercial customs data products we actively subscribe to and benchmark. We update this article whenever underlying customs-data regulations or major product capabilities change. Last reviewed: April 2026.</p> </div>

Conclusion

Chinese customs data is the closest thing international buyers have to a lie detector for Chinese suppliers. Used well, it answers three questions no sales pitch can answer honestly — does the supplier actually export, who do they sell to, and at what scale — and it does so with records that are filed under penalty of perjury and cross-referenceable against independent destination-country sources.

The practical playbook for most buyers is straightforward. Start with ImportYeti's free tier to check US import records. If the supplier's business is US-heavy, that alone may be sufficient. If the supplier's book is global, layer in 52wmb or Panjiva for Chinese-side and global coverage. Cross-reference every customs finding against business registration (GSXT) and court records to close the loop. Treat absence of records as a flag, not a verdict. And always combine customs data with one or two direct reference calls to named customers the supplier provides.

The suppliers who pass a full customs-data verification are the ones you want to build a relationship with. The ones who do not — whose records are absent, thin, or contradictory — are not worth the wire transfer risk, no matter how good their Alibaba page looks.

Related reading:

• US import data for Chinese supplier research
• China supplier risk assessment framework
• China trading company vs manufacturer: how to tell the difference
• How to verify a Chinese supplier — complete checklist
• How to import from China — the end-to-end workflow
• China company credit report — what it covers