TrueSource isn’t an agency with a call center. It’s me — one person in China, finding, buying and checking products for small businesses overseas.
I’ve spent four years in export sales in China, and two things kept bothering me.
First, most suppliers — even real factories — make a narrow range of products, and they rarely compare prices outside their own catalog. Ask a factory for the best deal and you’ll get the best deal from that factory.
Second, prices here can be set very loosely. In my export work I’ve seen near-identical products quoted at wildly different prices, with nothing in the specs to explain the gap.
Meanwhile, China’s own platforms — 1688, Taobao and Pinduoduo — offer enormous choice at domestic prices. But most overseas buyers can’t use them: the sites are in Chinese, payment and delivery are domestic, and there’s no way to check the goods before they ship.
So I decided to do it for you, in the open. I find and compare, buy at exactly what I pay, check everything by hand, and charge a fee you can see.
I work China evenings, 6 pm to midnight Beijing time. That’s the morning on the US East Coast and the afternoon in the UK and Europe, so we can often talk in real time. I reply to every message within 12 hours.
I’m in Yantai, a port city in Shandong province, northern China. I buy online from sellers all over China and have the goods delivered to me for checking. I don’t run a warehouse or a factory, and I won’t pretend to.
I keep my photo off this website, but I’m happy to meet on a video call, whether that’s to talk through your project or to show you your items live before they ship.