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xcommerce
Technical Sourcing

The engagement

Seven stages. Each one bought on its own.

We represent the buyer inside Chinese manufacturing. We identify the candidate factories, establish which of them actually manufacture, read the specifications in Chinese, get quotations at your volumes, and take apart the costs sitting behind the unit price.

The work runs in seven stages, in order. Each is priced and paid for on its own, and you can stop after any one of them.

Based in Shenzhen, acting for West African importers — currently Nigerian. We are not a trading company, not a freight forwarder, and not an agent for any factory.

Stage by stage

What each stage produces, and where it stops

Nothing below is a package. A stage is a piece of work with an output you can hold, and the boundary of each one is written down here rather than discovered later.
01

Discovery and requirements

We write down what you actually need — attribute by attribute, in your own units, at your own volumes, for the conditions the equipment has to survive. Which constraints are hard, which are preferences, and what the equipment is for.

What it produces

A versioned requirement set, structured so a Chinese factory can answer it without interpreting anything.

What you keep

The requirement document, frozen on submission. Every later comparison is measured against it, so it is the yardstick as well as the brief.

What it does not cover

It does not tell you what to buy. It records what you have said you need, precisely enough to be tested against a real product.
02

Market scan

A long list of companies that appear to make the thing, with what each one publishes about itself: product ranges, claimed capacity, claimed certifications, export presence, where they are. Every entry carries the source it came from.

What it produces

A candidate list with the published claims attached, and the reason each company is on it.

What you keep

The list and its sources, whether or not you go further. It stays useful even if you stop here.

What it does not cover

Nothing on it is verified. A market scan is a list of claims, and treating one as a shortlist is precisely how a buyer ends up negotiating with a trading company.
03

Verification

The pivot of the whole engagement. Business licence and business scope, registered capital, export entitlement, whether the company manufactures or trades, and whether two listings resolve to one firm. Findings are recorded as confirmed, refuted or not established — never guessed.

What it produces

A checked record per company, each finding carrying who checked it, when, and against which document.

What you keep

The findings and the evidence behind them, in your workspace. You can re-check any one of them yourself.

What it does not cover

It is not a quality-systems audit and not a credit check. It establishes who a company is and what it is entitled to do — not whether it will perform.
04

Quotation and comparison

Written quotations at your volumes on a stated incoterm, with minimum order quantity, lead time and validity. Then a like-for-like comparison, and the costs behind the unit price pulled out and named: docking, platform licences, cloud retention, freight, duty, certification.

What it produces

The quotation documents, a comparison at your target quantity, and a written note of what each supplier left unquoted.

What you keep

Every quotation as received. Prices reach you unchanged — they are the factory’s figures, not ours.

What it does not cover

We do not negotiate as principal and we sign nothing. The contract is between you and the manufacturer, and no price passes through us.
05

Specification and sampling

The full specification translated from Chinese and set against your requirement, attribute by attribute. Where the two disagree, or where a supplier’s own documents disagree with each other, the discrepancy is put to them in writing and the answer is recorded. Samples are ordered to the address you choose.

What it produces

Translated specification sheets, the discrepancy log with the supplier’s answers, and sample records.

What you keep

The translations and the correspondence. A specification you can read in English is a permanent asset, not a stage deliverable.

What it does not cover

Samples and their courier are paid by you, directly. A sample proves what the sample is, not what the production run will be — that is the next stage.
06

Factory visit and quality

Someone stands in the building. Lines, tooling, staffing, and whether the products claimed are actually made on the premises or bought in. The inspection criteria are agreed in writing with the manufacturer before production starts, rather than argued about after it.

What it produces

A dated visit report with photographs, and inspection criteria the supplier has accepted in writing.

What you keep

The report and the agreed criteria — the document an inspection is later measured against.

What it does not cover

It is not an accredited social, environmental or certification audit. Where a formal audit or a certificate is required, we identify which one applies and who issues it.
07

Pre-shipment and handover

Inspection against the agreed criteria before the balance is paid, and a handover pack assembled while the people who know the answers are still reachable: documents, part numbers, warranty terms, spares, and what your freight forwarder will need.

What it produces

An inspection record against the criteria set at stage six, and the handover pack.

What you keep

Everything. The pack is written for the person who will maintain the equipment in three years, not for the person signing the order.

What it does not cover

We are not a freight forwarder and not a customs broker. We do not book vessels, clear goods, or hold your money at any point.

Why this is unusual

You can stop after any stage, and what has been produced is still yours.

A sourcing agent paid on commission needs you to buy, and needs the order to be large. That incentive is invisible in every document they send you and present in all of them.

We are paid for the checking. If a market scan establishes that nothing in this category meets your requirement at your volume, that is a finished piece of work and a good outcome — you found out for the price of a scan rather than the price of a container.

From the live engagement

What the work has produced so far

A body-worn camera programme for a Nigerian client. These are the figures from that engagement, and they are the only figures on this site.
23

Manufacturers

Identified and assessed in one category.

19

Products

Captured with 244 specifications, translated from Chinese.

2

Listings, one firm

Resolved by normalised web domain. Two quotations that were not independent.

1

Disclosure

A company stated under direct questioning that production sits with a different firm entirely — which produced a new lead.

On the numbers.Everything above is recorded in the client workspace with its source. Where a figure would need to be estimated, this site leaves it out rather than rounding it into existence.

Commercial position

Where we sit, and where we do not

We act for one side of the transaction. No factory pays us, no factory has a relationship with us that would survive us finding something, and there is no commission anywhere in the arrangement — which is why the fee is charged per stage and stated before the stage starts.

You contract with the manufacturer and you pay the manufacturer. Your money never routes through us and we never take title to the goods. That is not a policy we could quietly relax on a large order; it is the structure of the practice.

The boundary, in full

  • We never hold client funds.
  • We never take title to goods.
  • We are not an agent for any factory, and no factory pays us.
  • We are not a freight forwarder, a customs broker or an insurer.
  • You contract and pay the manufacturer directly.

Starting

Most engagements start at stage two

A buyer usually arrives with a category, a rough volume and a deadline. That is enough to write a requirement set and run a scan, and the scan is where the picture changes: it is normally the first time anyone has counted how many of the companies in front of them are actually distinct.

If you already have a shortlist and quotations in hand, verification is the stage worth buying first. It is the one that answers whether the companies you are comparing are real, distinct, entitled to export, and quoting the same thing.

What we need from you

  • The category, and what the equipment has to do in service.
  • The volume you actually intend to buy, not the volume that gets a better price.
  • Where it has to land, and the date it has to be there.
  • The constraint that would kill the purchase — budget, certification, a tender condition, an installed system it has to work with.

If you are not sure which stage answers your question, describe the situation and we will tell you — including when the answer is that you do not need us yet.

Keep reading

How it works

The same engagement from your side: the charter, the workspace, the review, the approval.

How we verify a supplier

The method in full — licence, scope, entitlement, domain, catalogue and direct questioning.

What we source

Security and surveillance hardware, and why an engagement is six purchases rather than one.

xcommerce is a buyer-side technical sourcing practice based in Shenzhen. Clients contract and pay manufacturers directly. We never hold client funds and never take title to goods.