Every Canton Fair hall contains two kinds of booth: manufacturers showing what their lines produce, and trading companies showing what their spreadsheet can buy. Both can be useful counterparties, but they price differently, promise differently and fail differently — and the fair gives you exactly three to five days to tell them apart before samples, deposits and lead times lock in. This playbook covers what to look at in the booth, the documents to photograph, how to run samples, how to read the quote, and the follow-up cadence that turns a booth contact into a verified supplier. It applies to all three phases of the 140th session (15–19 Oct, 23–27 Oct, 31 Oct–4 Nov 2026).

Read the booth before you read the price list

Exhibitors reveal themselves physically. A manufacturer's booth runs deep in one category: successive generations of the same product line, tooling marks and mould details on display, engineering drawings or production photos on the walls, and staff who answer "what tolerance can you hold?" without reaching for a phone. A trading company's booth runs wide: unrelated categories side by side, glossy lifestyle photography instead of production imagery, and quotations that require a call to "the factory" before any number is committed. Neither pattern is fraud — but width versus depth tells you who will control your quality chain later.

Check the booth card and the company name on the licence they show you. Manufacturers exhibit under the entity that owns the production line; a booth name that differs from the contracting entity is your first written question.

Ten questions that separate factory from middleman

  1. Which city is the production line in, and may we visit it this week?
  2. How many lines run our category, and what is their monthly capacity in units?
  3. Who owns the tooling for this product — you, or a customer?
  4. May I photograph your business licence and note the unified social credit code?
  5. Which certifications do you hold in your own name, versus held by a customer or a lab partner?
  6. How many QC staff per line, and at which stages do they inspect?
  7. What percentage of last year's output was exported, and to which markets?
  8. What is your MOQ per colour or variant, and what drives it — materials, tooling or line changeover?
  9. Who signs the sales contract and issues the export invoice — this company or another entity?
  10. If we grow to three containers a month, what changes in your line or your price?

A manufacturer answers these from memory and invites the visit. A middleman answers most of them with "we will confirm" — which is fine if they then confirm in writing the same day, and disqualifying if they do not.

Documents to photograph in the booth

  • Business licence with the unified social credit code — the code later lets you confirm registration scope and status.
  • Certificates (CE, RoHS, UL, FDA as relevant) — note in whose name they are issued. A certificate in another company's name does not travel with your order.
  • Test reports with report numbers you can verify with the issuing lab.
  • Export records or customs declarations if offered — evidence of real shipment history to your market.

Photograph, do not accept photocopies: the timestamp and the booth context are part of the evidence. Organise them per supplier the same evening, while the conversation is fresh.

Samples: the three that matter

Request three distinct samples and label them as such. The showroom sample proves nothing beyond existence. The pre-production sample — built to your specification, your colour, your packaging — is the object you approve in writing before mass production. The production sample, pulled from the first run, is what you inspect against the approved pre-production unit. Agree in the booth who pays sample cost and courier (common splits: buyer pays courier, factory absorbs sample cost against a later order), the sample lead time in days, and that deviations from the approved sample require written re-approval.

Courier the samples to your office, not to your hotel room at the end of the trip: a sample reviewed between flights gets approved by fatigue.

The quote: demand the breakdown, not the number

A usable China quote separates five components — materials, labour, tooling or one-off engineering, manufacturing overhead, and margin — and states whether the VAT export rebate is assumed. A single FOB number with no breakdown cannot be negotiated, only accepted. Our guide to China manufacturing costs in 2026 gives the realistic ranges for each component so a too-good number reads as a warning instead of a win.

Pin the Incoterm in writing. "FOB" without a named port is not a price; FOB named port explains why the port choice moves real money. Collect quotes from at least three suppliers per item in the same format — comparison is the only leverage a fair buyer has, because switching costs after deposit are brutal.

Payment terms: negotiate structure before price

The market norm for a first order is 30% deposit and 70% against copy shipping documents, on T/T; larger or repeat orders open letters of credit and open-account conversations. Full prepayment from a first-time booth contact is not a term, it is a risk transfer to you. Our payment terms guide covers the instruments and the milestones; the fair-specific rule is simpler: agree the structure in the booth so the proforma invoice that arrives in November already matches what you both said in October.

The post-fair follow-up cadence

  • Within 48 hours: written summary to each shortlisted supplier — specification, quantity, sample request, quote format — by email and WeChat. First-movers get the factory's attention while the fair team is still assembled.
  • Week 1–2: samples in transit; verify the documents you photographed (licence scope, certificate ownership, lab report numbers).
  • Week 2–4: quotes compared in one sheet; negotiate MOQ and price tiers against volume, using our MOQ negotiation guide for credible counters.
  • Before deposit: factory visit or third-party audit for any order where the deposit exceeds your tolerance for loss. Most Phase 1–3 exhibitors manufacture within a two-hour radius of Guangzhou or Shenzhen; cluster visits into one trip — the Greater Bay Area guide maps the clusters by category.
  • At deposit: contract names the entity from the licence, the approved sample as an annex, inspection rights, and the payment milestones.
Red flags that end a negotiationCertificates in someone else's name with no explanation · refusal to name the production city or allow a visit · contract entity different from booth entity with no corporate chart · full prepayment demanded · quotes 30–40% under every comparable with no breakdown to explain the gap · pressure to deposit before the fair closes "to hold the price". Any one of these is a reason to walk; two is a reason to blacklist.

Where verification ends and partnership begins

The fair finds candidates; verification makes suppliers; the first three orders make partners. Buyers who institutionalise the sequence — booth evidence, document checks, approved samples, on-site audit, staged payments — convert a five-day trip into a supply chain that survives contact with peak season. It is the same sequence ChinaMakersHub runs on every manufacturer before it appears in our verified factory catalogue, which is why a listing here can stand in for the audit step when your order size does not justify a flight.