How It Works: From Your Spec to Your Back Room in Six Steps

Six steps, and you can stop at any one of them. Most people don't start with a program — they start with one product they're already buying, and a suspicion that it costs less than they're paying.

One thing about the timings below. Every one is a range, because tooling, order books, transit and clearance all move. The range for your order gets confirmed in writing before you commit money to anything.

Step 1 — Spec and target cost

This is the step people skip, and it decides everything after it. A factory can't schedule against "sturdy." It can schedule against a material grade, a dimension and a tolerance.

You send us: the product — a photo, a sample, a drawing, or the distributor's item you buy today. Plus rough annual volume, and the date it has to be on your shelf.
We do: turn it into a manufacturing-ready spec in Chinese and English — material, dimensions, tolerances, finish, packaging, units per carton, and the compliance standard for your category. We also check the HS classification here, because the code on your invoice decides your duty exposure, and getting it right now costs nothing.
You get: a written spec sheet you could send to any factory, plus a target cost range built backwards from your retail price.
Timing: a few days once we have the sample or the numbers — faster if you send the physical item, because reverse-sourcing works best from the object.

Step 2 — Shortlist from the pool, and price comparison

We're buyer-side, which means we don't start from a search result or from whoever answered the phone. We start from a pool we've already screened, and go outside it only when your product needs something none of them do.

You send us: nothing. Just the go-ahead.
We do: match your spec against 100+ vetted manufacturers across lawn and garden, building materials, and Christmas and holiday decoration. Garden center hardgoods is where most of our volume sits, and building materials runs second. Every candidate in that pool has already cleared six conditions: minimums a small store can absorb; shelf-ready packaging with UPC barcodes and hangtags; capacity locked in writing with a penalty clause; two inspection records per order; US compliance paperwork on demand; and a 24-hour reply rule with line-by-line quotes instead of a lump sum. Any one fails and they're out.
You get: a shortlist with the factory invoices attached. Factory price on one line, our fee on another. You see what we see.
Timing: about one to two weeks — longer if your category needs a factory we haven't opened, and if it does, we visit it before it goes on your list.

Step 3 — Samples and first-article confirmation

A photo of a sample tells you almost nothing about how a product survives a season. So we don't approve on photos, and we don't let a factory start a run on one.

You send us: which sample you want made, and how you'll test it.
We do: order the samples, receive them here, measure them against the Step 1 spec, and flag anything that drifted. If it helps, we put a blind benchmark pack next to it — your current item and the factory's, unlabelled — so you compare objects instead of descriptions.
You get: physical samples in your hands, measurements of anything that missed, and a marked-up spec if something has to change before tooling gets cut.
Timing: roughly two to four weeks. Tooling pushes it long; a stock item with a colour change sits short.

Nothing goes into production until you've held it. If the sample is wrong, we fix it here, where a fix costs an email.

Step 4 — Factory audit and the two inspection checkpoints

Two jobs in this step: check the factory before you pay them, and check the goods before they leave.

You send us: go or no-go on the factory.
We do: run the audit. $400–$500, paid by you, and I do it myself — on site, at the registered address, not subcontracted. I read the Chinese business licence and its 经营范围 line (制造/加工 means they make things; 批发/进出口 means they trade them), confirm whether the entity on your contract is the entity running the line, check real capacity against quoted capacity, and ask which processes are in-house. On your order, two checkpoints: first-article before the run starts, AQL sampling before we release the balance.
You get: the written audit report before you place a deposit, and an inspection report with photos at each checkpoint.
Timing: the audit gets scheduled within about a week of your go-ahead; the report lands within a few days of the visit.

Being exact about those two checkpoints, because this is where agents blur the line: first-article confirmation before production, AQL sampling before shipment. We don't have someone on the line every day, and we don't price the job as if we did. If your product needs continuous presence on the floor, say so at Step 1 and I'll tell you whether we're the right fit — I'd rather lose the job at the start than argue about it in week ten.

Step 5 — Consolidation and delivery to your back room

This is the step that makes direct sourcing work at your size. Every factory wants a container of its own product. You want 300 of one thing and 900 of another.

You send us: your delivery address, or your 3PL.
We do: bring goods from several suppliers to one point, inspect them to a single standard, repack where needed and palletize them as one load — consolidation and retail-ready packaging, including flat-pack cartons sized for your shelves, UPC barcodes verified to scan, carton marks your staff can read, and English warning sheets. Then we book the freight and arrange door-to-door delivery to your store or back room — the delivered-cost equivalent of buying DDP, with duty and freight still shown as separate lines.
You get: one shipment, one set of documents, one landed cost per SKU — with freight, duty and last-mile as separate line items rather than one number you can't audit.
Timing: consolidation one to two weeks. Transit and clearance are measured in weeks, and the window goes to you in writing before you commit.

Step 6 — Arrival and the debrief

The order isn't finished when it lands. It's finished when you know what to do differently next time, and when next time has a date on it.

You send us: what your receiving team found — shortages, damage, anything that doesn't match the approved sample.
We do: compare what arrived against what was approved, log any claim while the goods and cartons are still there to photograph, and settle it with the factory while it's our problem instead of yours. Then debrief: what to reorder, what to change next run, and when the next order has to be placed to hit the same week next season.
You get: a resolved claim if there is one, and a written calendar for the next round — the date, not a reminder to think about the date.
Timing: the debrief inside a week of delivery.

Start with one product

You don't need a sourcing program or an import department to start. Take the item whose margin you like least and send it over with the price you're paying now — that is usually where the interesting numbers hide. We'll tell you what it costs to land, what we'd change, and straight out if we can't improve it. No fee, no deposit, no obligation, no call until you ask for one.

We reply within 24 hours, weekends and holidays included.