The factory visit before ordering: what it catches that a photo or a call cannot

A factory visit before ordering, done by you or by someone you send, is a check that the business about to receive your money is a real, operating factory and not just a name on an invoice. A sample, a glossy product page and a friendly video call can all be arranged by a trading company that has never run a production line of its own. The decision that matters most is not whether a visit happens, but what else it needs to be paired with, because the single biggest cause of money disappearing on an overseas order is not usually a fake factory. It is a genuine supplier's bank details, intercepted and swapped before the payment goes out.

What a visit catches that paperwork cannot

A visitor can see things no document shows: whether the production floor is running at capacity or sitting half idle, whether a quality-control station is a working process or a table set up for the tour, and whether the person who has been emailing you actually works there. Sourcing guides covering manufacturing overseas agree on the core risk: many online "manufacturers" are in fact trading companies reselling someone else's production, and the clearest way to tell the difference is to see the floor, the machinery and the workforce in person.

That does not mean every order justifies a trip. A small first order, or a supplier found through a well-vetted trade fair, may not need one, and plenty of experienced buyers reserve the visit for the point where an order is about to become large or ongoing. We cover who can carry out that visit for you, and how China specifically changes the picture, in our piece on meeting a supplier in China.

The bigger risk: the right factory, the wrong account

Even a verified, genuine factory does not protect you from the most common way this money goes missing: a fraudster who has read or intercepted the real supplier's email and asks you, convincingly, to send payment to a different account than usual.

This is not a rare edge case. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) logged 21,442 complaints of business email compromise in 2024, with reported losses of almost $2.8 billion, the second-highest dollar figure of any fraud category it tracks, behind only investment fraud. The IC3's own description of the scam names exactly this scenario: a business with a long-standing supplier relationship is asked to redirect an invoice payment to an alternate, fraudulent account, a request that can arrive by phone, fax or email. The source of that figure is the FBI's 2024 Internet Crime Report.

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, gives the practical defence in its guidance on phishing: verify any important request, including a changed bank detail or an unusual invoice, through a second channel, such as a phone call to a number you already hold for that supplier, not a number in the email you are checking, and tell your own suppliers and customers in advance that your bank details will not change by email alone. A verified factory with a compromised inbox is still a loss waiting to happen, and no amount of time spent on the factory floor fixes that on its own.

Structuring payment so a problem has time to surface

The visit answers one question. How and when you pay answers a different one: if something is wrong, will you find out before the money is gone or after.

Paying the full amount upfront, by standard bank transfer, gives you the least time to catch a problem, because once production starts there is little pressure on the seller to resolve a dispute and little the sender's bank can do to claw a wire transfer back once it has settled. Two more structured alternatives are common:

A deposit now, the balance later. The buyer pays a minority of the price to start production, with the remainder released only once a pre-shipment inspection, carried out by you, by a representative you send, or by an independent inspection firm, confirms the goods match the order.

A letter of credit moves the guarantee to a bank rather than to trust between the two companies. The buyer's bank commits to pay the seller once the seller presents agreed documents, typically an invoice, a packing list and proof of shipment. This is useful cover against a seller simply not shipping, but it is not cover against poor-quality goods: a bank pays against paperwork, not against an inspection of the goods themselves, which is why a letter of credit and a pre-shipment inspection are normally used together rather than as substitutes for each other.

None of this removes the value of the visit. It changes what the visit is protecting: not just whether you get your goods, but whether a problem shows up while there is still money left to withhold.

A worked example

The figures below are an illustration built for this article, for an order worth £20,000, not a quote from any bank, platform or inspection firm.

Actual splits, fees and minimum order sizes vary by bank, platform, product and country, so treat this only as a sense of the shape of the choice.

Who can check, if not you

Independent, mission-based representatives, sourcing agents already working in the supplier's region, and specialist third-party inspection firms all carry out factory visits and pre-shipment checks as routine work, priced per trip or per audit rather than as a retainer. Our guides on hiring someone to attend a trade show and on what a business representative abroad actually does cover how to brief a representative, what authority to withhold, and the difference between a single scoped visit and a standing arrangement. The same brief discipline applies here: a written scope, no authority to agree a price or confirm acceptance of goods unless you say so, and a reporting deadline fixed before anyone travels. Members of the Republic of Investors community who have sent someone to check a supplier tend to agree on this much: the brief decides whether the trip was worth it far more than who you hired.

What to do next

Before you wire anything, separate the two questions this article covers. First, is this a real factory that matches its paperwork, checked by you or by someone you send. Second, independently of the first answer, is the account you are about to pay the right one, confirmed through a channel the supplier cannot have compromised. Decide next how payment will be staged so that an inspection or a visit actually has something to catch before the balance goes out. For a single, scoped visit, a mission is the simplest way to get eyes on a factory you cannot reach yourself; for sourcing that will run over many orders and suppliers, that is closer to a standing arrangement than a one-off trip.

Need someone on the ground? Hadri takes on missions: meetings, trade shows, conferences and site visits in any city, quoted per trip. Request a quote.

Common questions

Is a factory visit always necessary before I order? No. Many buyers go straight to ordering for a small first order or a supplier sourced through a well-vetted trade fair. A visit, by you or someone you send, earns its cost more clearly as the order size grows or the relationship becomes ongoing.

What is the difference between a factory audit and a pre-shipment inspection? A factory audit looks at the operation itself: capacity, management and standards such as ISO 9001. A pre-shipment inspection happens later, checking a specific finished order against the contract before it ships. They answer different questions, and a cautious buyer on a large order may want both.

Does a letter of credit protect me against receiving poor-quality goods? Not on its own. A bank issuing a letter of credit pays against documents that match agreed conditions, not against a physical check of the goods. Pairing it with an independent pre-shipment inspection, with the inspection certificate as one of the required documents, covers the gap.

What should I do if a supplier emails to say their bank details have changed? Treat it as a reason to pause, not a reason to pay faster. Call the supplier on a number you already hold for them, not a number in the email, and confirm the change verbally before sending anything. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center both describe this exact scenario as one of the most common and costly frauds businesses report.

Who can carry out a factory visit if I cannot travel myself? Independent mission-based representatives, regional sourcing agents and third-party inspection firms all do this routinely, each suited to a slightly different brief. Meeting a supplier in China sets out how to choose between them and what to put in the brief.