Chinese Sourcing Agents毅孜国际贸易

Chinese Sourcing Agents is a small, British-owned sourcing agency with its team on the ground in Shenzhen. Client contracts sit with a UK company (number 08877369). The China work of finding factories, checking samples, inspecting goods and booking freight is done by its licensed local company, Shenzhen Yizi International Trading (深圳毅孜国际贸易). It's a personal operation: director Stuart Lunn is every client's point of contact.

Lunn is a Brit living and working in China who has long been hooked on the journey a product makes from an Asian factory floor to a shop in Europe or North America. He started the agency to be the bridge in that journey. The bilingual team covers consumer goods like electronics, fitness equipment, homewares and furniture, and industrial lines like chemicals, building products and machinery. In-house there are QC inspectors, CE and UKCA conformity specialists and a freight-forwarding lead.

The client list is refreshingly down to earth. English vineyards Newhall and Denbies imported trellis posts, wires and ground anchors through them. Australian horticulture group WHG sources custom-branded products, and a hospitality consultant worked with Lunn on bespoke items for London's Chateau Denmark hotel. "Despite all our products requiring custom branding, the process has been seamless," says WHG's Jacob Cruden, who adds that the team will take on "even the smallest requests". Home Leisure Direct, OJ Gyms and Drinkstuff are on the client list too.

Pricing is out in the open. Quotes come as a landed cost, broken down from unit price through inland transport, port fees and freight to VAT and duty. The pricing page gives the commission as 8% of FOB, while the homepage says 9% of payments to the manufacturer. On-site production checks cost $118 for up to two hours or $188 for up to eight, and lab testing is $299. Samples can be reviewed with you over a video call. The blog is practical, with posts on whether you need CE or UKCA marking and why the factory price isn't the real price.

This agency suits UK, European and Australian small businesses importing custom-branded or made-to-spec goods who want one English-speaking contact handling sourcing, QC and delivery to the door. It isn't an engineering firm, so products that need electronics design or tooling development will need a separate design partner.