These are working documents rather than articles: checklists, sequences and decision rules you can copy into a supplier file. They are written from the factory side of the Pacific as much as from the buyer side, which is the whole point of Rainbow Bridge. Where a topic touches tariffs or regulation, we give you the framework and a link to the official source — never a number we made up, and never a legal opinion.
A working checklist for separating real manufacturers from trading companies, verifying that a supplier legally exists, and pressure-testing capability before you place a first order.
02How to build a landed-cost model that survives contact with reality: what classification actually determines, which duties stack, and where importers most often get the arithmetic wrong.
03Where minimum order quantities actually come from, how to run a sampling sequence that ends in an approved reference sample, and how to build a lead time you can plan around.
04A repeatable pre-shipment inspection protocol: what to define before production, how AQL sampling works, what the inspector must check, and what happens when the lot fails.
05How the three modes actually bill, which Incoterm puts control where, what the document set has to contain, and how to choose a mode from the shape of your cargo rather than the headline rate.
06How deposits, balances and instruments actually allocate risk between buyer and factory — and the small set of fraud patterns that account for most losses in China sourcing.
07The practical order of operations for protecting a brand and a design while manufacturing overseas: register first, contract deliberately, control tooling and files, and know which enforcement channels exist.
08How to plan a China sourcing trip that produces suppliers instead of business cards: phase selection, pre-trip preparation, a working booth routine, factory visits, and the follow-up that decides whether the trip paid for itself.
09A map of the US agencies that can stop your import: who regulates what, which product categories trigger which requirements, and the official sources to check before you buy.
10What a US third-party logistics provider actually does, how the fee structure is built, how to choose a location, and the operational details that decide whether your inventory is sellable or stuck.
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