Agent fees in China — what the fee covers and what you see.

Three rules govern how money works at SinaFirst. The fee is agreed before work starts. It is invoiced separately — never inside the price. And supplier prices pass through as paid: what the supplier receives is what you see. Current rates are listed under Pricing & Terms; this page explains the mechanics behind them — what is disclosed, what is not, and why.

Supplier names can be confidential. Numbers never are.

Which of the two applies depends on the service tier — and it is stated before work starts, not discovered after. On every tier you see the money. Whether you see the supplier’s name depends on who did the sourcing work — you or me.

Your suppliers, my execution. I manage purchasing, communication, process control, consolidation and export handover with suppliers you already work with. Disclosure is not a question here: the suppliers are yours, you see every quote as issued and every payment as made.

Sourcing is on me: I search against your task and filter suppliers for the red and green flags experience has taught me to see. That search is skilled, time-consuming work — it is what the higher rate reflects; the execution behind it is the same as on Basic. Supplier names may stay confidential: a found supplier is the output of paid work, and I say so upfront rather than promising “full transparency” and quietly pricing it in. The numbers are never confidential: payment records to the supplier are available on request, identity redacted. You always know what was paid — the fee is the separate service fee, and there is nothing for me inside the price.

If open supplier names matter to you — continuity, security of supply — that can be discussed as part of the scope. These are defaults, not walls; the terms are fixed before work starts.

For non-standard projects — unusual workload, risk level, or responsibility in China — the scope, the fee and the disclosure terms are agreed individually. In writing, before work starts.

Targeted or complex sourcing delivered as a package: suppliers, prices, contacts — all handed over, all yours. What you do with them afterwards is your business. If you want execution support later, it is available — typically at the End-to-end rate, since the sourcing work behind those contacts is mine.

The disclosure rule in miniature: a reliable price confirmation for one product, supplier undisclosed. You buy certainty about the number, not the contact.

A found supplier is not a contact pulled from a shelf — it is the output of paid search work: screening against your task, filtering the flags, testing communication. On the End-to-end tier that work is part of what you are paying for; handing over the contacts for free would be handing over its output. Contacts as a product do exist — that is the fixed-fee sourcing tier, priced separately. Much of the industry resolves this quietly, by earning inside the price while advertising transparency. I resolve it openly: closed names where the search was mine, open numbers everywhere, and the rule stated before the first invoice.

The service fee is my only income in a deal, and it prices one thing: my work — managing the deal, my time and my involvement at every stage. Within an agent engagement, none of that is billed separately. Nothing else is inside the fee: warehouse storage, transport, packing and repacking, travel and any other third-party costs each come as their own line, named before they occur and passed through as billed.

Supplier payments are made from funds you place first — I do not finance purchases and do not work on credit.

The fee is calculated on the purchase value — everything actually paid toward the goods — and sits on top of it as one visible line, never inside it. A deposit is required to start and is credited toward the final service fee. Current rates: Pricing & Terms →

Percentage offers are only comparable when the obligations behind them are the same. “X% for payments and export” means little until it is clear who reconciles incoming goods against orders, who answers for shortages and discrepancies, and whose name stands in the export documents. The fee here prices that operational responsibility — not the transfer of money.

Every stage leaves a record. The record is yours.