A seller in r/FulfillmentByAmazon is heading to Shenzhen and Guangzhou this month to attend IOTE’26 and asked the community how to prepare for a first in-person China sourcing trip. The original post is a question rather than a guide, so the Squatio Team has put together a practical primer on what to lock down before you get on the plane — because trade-show trips reward preparation and punish improvisation.
Why in-person sourcing still matters
- Factory floors reveal what Alibaba listings hide: real production capacity, QC process, whether the “manufacturer” is actually a trading company.
- Face-to-face meetings compress months of email back-and-forth into a single conversation, and generally improve the pricing and terms you’re offered.
- Trade shows like IOTE (IoT / RFID / smart hardware focused) put dozens of suppliers in the same building, which is efficient — but only if you already know what you’re looking for.
Before you travel
- Have a shortlist, not a vibe. Arrive with 5–15 specific product categories or target ASINs you want to source against. Wandering a show floor without a target list burns days.
- Know your target landed cost. Work backwards from Amazon selling price, referral fee, FBA fee, and your minimum margin to get a maximum EXW/FOB price per unit. If a supplier can’t hit it, you can disqualify them in thirty seconds.
- Pre-book meetings. Message suppliers on Alibaba/1688 a couple of weeks ahead and schedule factory visits around the show dates. The best factories fill their calendars.
- Sort logistics early. Business visa, hotel near the venue, local SIM or eSIM, WeChat installed and set up (this is the default business channel, not email), plus a payment method that works locally.
- Print bilingual materials. A one-page spec sheet with your product requirements in English and Chinese removes a huge amount of ambiguity.
At the show and on factory visits
- Distinguish factory from trading company. Ask to see the production line, ask which specific processes are in-house versus outsourced, and ask for their business licence.
- Ask about capacity and lead times honestly. Monthly output, current order backlog, and realistic lead time during Q4 and around Chinese New Year.
- Discuss MOQ flexibility. First-order MOQs are often negotiable, especially if you commit to a repeat schedule.
- Get certification documentation. Depending on category: CE, FCC, RoHS, UL, CPC, food-contact or battery documentation. For IoT/electronics specifically, battery and radio certifications are non-negotiable for Amazon compliance.
- Collect samples and label them meticulously. Photograph each sample with the supplier’s business card. After thirty booths, memory fails.
- Take notes on Incoterms. EXW, FOB and DDP quotes are not comparable at face value — normalise them before you evaluate.
After you get home
- Order paid samples from your top 3 suppliers per product and compare them side by side against the spec sheet.
- Verify company details independently before wiring anything, and structure first payments to limit exposure.
- Line up third-party inspection for your first production run rather than trusting first-order goodwill.
How Squatio helps
The biggest risk on a sourcing trip isn’t finding a factory — it’s coming home with an order for a product the market didn’t want.
- Build your pre-trip shortlist with Prospect (Product Database) so you’re filtering by revenue, price band and competition before you commit to a category.
- Pressure-test whether a show-floor category is actually worth entering using Cortex (AI niche & category analysis).
- Check real demand behind a product idea with Neuron (AI keyword search & interpretation) so your target unit cost is anchored to genuine search volume, not enthusiasm.
- Use Squatio Decode (ASIN lookup, listing visibility & Sentiment IQ review analysis) to mine negative reviews on incumbent products — those complaints become the exact spec changes you hand to the factory.
- Understand what it will cost to actually get traffic post-launch with Squatio Optimize (PPC intelligence), so your negotiated unit cost leaves room for ad spend.
If you’ve done a trade-show sourcing trip: what’s the one thing you’d add to your pre-departure checklist next time that you skipped the first time around?