Blog

The drawing sent out for quotation is the moment you stop controlling your own product, so protection starts earlier than most buyers expect. This covers why a trademark at home does not cover production in China and when to file, how tooling ownership is decided by documents rather than invoices, and how to release a design in three stages so a factory only sees the technical package once the agreements are signed, plus the records worth keeping.

A defect found inside a sealed container has already turned into a commercial argument. This guide covers the two moments worth checking - mid-production and pre-shipment - and why the specification matters more than the inspector. It explains how sampling works against agreed limits, why the buyer must appoint and pay for the check, and how the three possible outcomes of a report should be written into the contract before production begins.

Guangzhou Baiyun led China's airports with 43.33 million passengers in the first half of 2026, and its international routes grew about 18 percent in eight months. This guide covers what the numbers show, how Terminal 3 and a fifth runway reshape arrival, why the new border hall clears foreign passengers faster, and which new routes - including Vancouver from May 2027 - make Guangzhou worth treating as a first stop rather than a stopover.

A first order from a Chinese supplier usually moves in two payments, and the structure around them matters more than the amounts. This guide covers what the deposit buys, how bank transfer, platform escrow and letter of credit put the risk in different places, and why the beneficiary name has to match the contract you signed. It sets out four items to fix in writing before any money leaves, and how to test a mid-order change of bank details.

Foreign buyers in China often meet the invoicing question at the till, where the receipt will not satisfy anyone back home. This guide explains what a fapiao is, why the buyer must raise it before the transaction rather than after, what information the invoice needs, and why goods and service invoices are different documents. It also covers why our ground services need your invoicing details up front, and how to keep a record that satisfies both your accountant and the Chinese requirement.

Train G8388 circles more than 1,200 kilometres of the Yangtze Delta in eight hours, touching twenty stations across Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. This guide explains what the super loop is, how Jiangsu's ticket-stub economy turns a train ticket into a province-wide voucher, how to plan the circle around the days you have, which stops earn their own nights, and what foreign passport holders should know about 12306 bookings, payments and departure tax refunds.

Most apparel buyers plan a sourcing week around one city and miss how the supply chain is actually arranged. This guide covers why one garment crosses several provinces, what Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong each do best, the four checks that decide a textile visit - fabric source, lab dips, the sample room and compliance documents - and how to fit three provinces into one week by high-speed rail.

Most buyers arrive in Yiwu expecting a single market and find a distribution system with a shopping front end. This guide covers how the districts are arranged by product family, why the stall in front of you is rarely the factory behind it, how to brief and use a buying agent day, how sampling turns a walk into decisions, and how to consolidate several small orders so they leave one city as one shipment.

Shenzhen airport passed five million cross-border trips this year sixteen days early, with foreign entries up 29.9 percent. This guide sets out what earns the tech capital its own days: the free light shows at Civic Center and Talent Park, the electronics halls of Huaqiangbei, the drone displays at Window of the World, the beaches and the Ming fortress on the Dapeng peninsula, the sunrise hike up Wutong Mountain, plus entry rules, two-minute tax refunds and the metro that links it all.

Guangdong is a set of manufacturing clusters rather than a single market. This guide maps what each one is genuinely good at - Shenzhen for electronics and components, Dongguan and Foshan for hardware, appliances and furniture, Guangzhou for trade and fairs, Huizhou and Zhongshan for appliances and lighting - and explains why travel time between the clusters shapes a sourcing week, and why meeting a factory in the cluster it belongs to tells you more than any showroom.

Most of what decides how smoothly an order leaves China is settled before it is packed. This guide covers the three ways goods travel - hand-carry, courier and freight - what a shipment should travel with and why samples must be described accurately, how packing, labelling and consolidation work when several suppliers are involved, and when it pays to stop improvising and appoint a freight forwarder.

Brazil is up 358 percent, Spain 233 percent, the Gulf states more than doubled. Here are the ten source markets reshaping China's inbound tourism map in 2026 — and what each one wants from a trip.

Two quiet hours with a brush may be the richest cultural session in a China itinerary. This guide covers what happens in a beginner calligraphy class, from grinding ink to writing your own name, where to book one in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an and Hangzhou, why the Forest of Steles is the place to see two thousand years of handwriting, and where the four treasures of the study are still made by hand in southern Anhui.

Most of what a trade fair is worth is decided in the two weeks after you fly home. This guide covers sorting the card pile while the meetings are still fresh, the short follow-up that actually gets a reply, the four things to ask every supplier for so the answers can be compared, why a factory and a trading company are different contacts, and how to keep a shortlist alive when you are not ready to order yet.

The Canton Fair is three fairs in three weeks, not one event. This buyer's week plan shows how to pick the phase that carries your list, why a day of early arrival pays for itself at Pazhou, how to choose a hotel and sort the badge, how to run a day of halls and conversations, and how to carry your energy through the second half of a long fair.

Group business travel is its own discipline. This guide shows a delegation organiser why a large group runs on one file and one coordinator, how to hold a room block and settle billing and transport, how to run parallel meetings with the right interpretation, and how to carry duty of care through the day the programme has to change - plus what to settle before anyone books a flight.