Auditing a Shoe Factory Without Flying to China
A remote factory audit works when it is built on evidence, not video polish: a document request first, a live walkthrough during production hours, a sample cut open on camera, and…
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Red Flags in a Supplier Reply — and What a Good One Looks Like
Most supplier red flags are not lies, they are gaps: no named port, no validity date, no packing basis, a price before anyone asked about your design. Here are the nine signals…
Read more →How to Read a Footwear Quotation: FOB, EXW, CIF and DDP
FOB, EXW, CIF and DDP decide who pays for every step between a Xiamen production line and your warehouse. Here is what each term covers, which costs never appear on the quote, and…
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Alibaba Supplier vs Direct Factory: The Real Cost Difference
A platform supplier and a direct factory can quote within cents of each other and still finish an order thousands apart. Six cost lines — unit price, commission, MOQ cash,…
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Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Place a Slipper Order
A slipper order fails on details, not on price. Twelve questions — construction, MOQ, density, size split, print method, packing, lead time — that separate a reliable EVA slipper…
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Mould Costs, Sample Fees, and Who Owns the Tooling
A mould fee and a sample fee are two different payments for two different things. Before you sign either, settle the one line that decides your reorder price and your freedom to…
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The MOQ Matrix: Per Style, Per Colour, Per Size
A footwear MOQ is not one number. On one-piece injection moulded EVA it is 600 pairs per colour, and colour is the axis that usually sets the real minimum. How the matrix works,…
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How to Verify a Chinese Footwear Supplier in Seven Steps
Most supplier checks stop at a business licence, which is the one document every middleman also holds. Seven checks that only a producing factory can pass, all doable from your…
Read more →Shoe Trading Company vs Factory: How to Tell What You Are Actually Buying
A trading company sells footwear it buys; a factory sells footwear it makes. Three questions in the first email tell you which one you are dealing with, and what that means for…
Read more →Canton Fair 2026: A Footwear Buyer's Guide to the 139th Session
The 139th Canton Fair runs 1–5 May 2026. Here is how to plan your footwear meetings, what to bring, and how to compare quotes once you are back home.
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Indoor Slipper Sourcing: MOQ, Sizing and Packaging Explained
Indoor slippers look simple until the first purchase order. These are the three numbers that decide your landed cost and your sell-through.
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Mixed Container vs Full Container: Cutting Freight Cost on Multi-Style Orders
If you buy slippers in one factory and sneakers in another, you are paying twice for freight. Consolidation usually fixes that.
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Raw Material Volatility: Planning Footwear Orders When Polymer Prices Move
EVA, TPR and PU all track upstream chemical pricing. A quote that ignores the raw material clause is a quote with a hidden expiry date.
Read more →A 7-Point Quality Checklist Before Your Private-Label Footwear Ships
Most claims come from three places: bonding, sizing and packing. A short checklist at pre-shipment catches nearly all of them.
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