Met a supplier at the Canton Fair? Check these 5 things before you order

The fair was great. The booth looked serious, the samples were exactly what you need, the salesperson spoke good English and answered everything. You flew home with a stack of cards and a favorite.

Now the follow-up emails start, and here's the thing nobody tells first-time fair buyers: a booth is not a company. Booths are rented by the square meter, staffed for a week, and the samples on the table came from somewhere — the question is where. The fair shows you the sales operation. It shows you nothing about the factory.

Five checks before that booth becomes your supplier:

1. Match the card to the license

The name on the business card, the name in the email signature, and the name on the official business registration are often three different things. Sometimes innocent — a brand name over a legal entity. Sometimes not — a Hong Kong shell over a mainland trader over a factory none of them own. Pull the real registration and see who you're actually dealing with. It's public record, if you know where to look and can read it.

2. Ask whose factory made the samples

Directly, in writing: "Were these samples produced in your own factory? Which one — what address?" A manufacturer answers with a place. A trader answers with an essay. Keep that answer — if the factory address they name later doesn't match it, you've learned something important early and cheap.

3. Check the booth math

Walk the fair's website and look up the company's other product listings. A "factory" exhibiting LED strips in phase one, kitchenware in phase two, and garden tools in phase three is not a factory — machines don't work that way. Deep and narrow means production. Wide and shallow means trading with a factory costume on.

4. Get the bank details early — and check them

Before negotiations get serious, ask for the company's bank details for future payment. Then verify: does the beneficiary name match the registered legal entity? A mainland factory quoting you from a personal account, a cousin's company, or an offshore entity with a similar name is where most post-fair fraud actually happens. Not fake factories — real conversations ending at wrong bank accounts.

5. Have someone walk the floor before the deposit

The factory is probably 40–90 minutes from the fair grounds — Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan. If your order is worth five figures, one visit before the wire is not paranoia, it's arithmetic. Machinery for your product, workers on the line, the address matching the license. In person, suppliers become a different company — the one you'll actually be working with.

The short version

Card vs. license. Samples vs. actual factory. Catalog logic. Bank account vs. entity. And boots on the floor before money moves. The fair found you a candidate — these five checks tell you if the candidate is real.