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Glossary · Trade terms
What is Trading company vs factory?
The difference between a supplier that makes the goods itself and one that resells or outsources production, affecting price, control and accountability.
A factory owns or controls the production lines that make your product. A trading company buys from factories and sells on, sometimes adding real value through consolidation, export handling or quality control, sometimes only a margin. Many Chinese suppliers present themselves as factories online whether or not they are.
Neither is automatically better. A good trading company can combine many product types into one small order. But for custom specifications, tooling or tight quality control, you need to know who actually makes the goods, because that is where problems get fixed.
Ways to check: the business license and its registered scope, who owns the production site, whether the people you meet work on the factory floor, and an on-site audit. Beato checks every manufacturer's background and quality before any work starts.
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