Buyers come to Yiwu for one reason that is easy to miss when you are browsing online: everything a toy needs is made in the same city. The plastic parts, the packaging, the printing, the cartons, the freight forwarders — all of it is within a few kilometres, which is why a product can be changed, boxed and shipped without leaving town.
This is what buying here actually looks like, written from inside the market rather than from a sourcing blog.
Where the toys are
Yiwu International Trade City is organised by district, and District 1 is the toy district. Our own booth is in District 1, Gate 17, first floor, Area E, Street 2810B — a booth is the front of the business here, and most of the suppliers you meet in the market are either factories or closely connected to one.
Come with a list. A market with tens of thousands of booths is not somewhere you browse your way to a decision; it is somewhere you go with a specification, a quantity and a target price band, and see who can meet it.
Booth, trading company, factory
These are three different things and the price tells you which one you are talking to.
A trading company carries a wide range and can assemble a mixed order from several makers. Convenient, more expensive, and it will not always know why a product failed on its last run.
A factory makes the product. Narrower range, more detail available, and usually a straightforward answer when you ask about the mould or the material.
Ask something only a maker knows. What is the material, what happens if we change the mould, what is the scrap rate on this part. A trader will answer around the question.
How an order runs
You see the product at the booth, or in photographs if you are buying remotely. You order a sample and judge it with solution in it rather than on a table. You agree the specification — product, packaging, quantity, carton — and place the order with a deposit. Production runs, the balance is settled against the documents, and a forwarder takes the goods from Yiwu to your port.
The part that is genuinely Yiwu’s advantage is consolidation. If you are buying wands from one supplier, guns from another and solution from a third, they can all be brought together and shipped as one consignment. That is what the market infrastructure here exists to do, and it is worth using even if you only source part of your range from us.
What to ask for before you commit
Carton dimensions in centimetres, pieces per carton, gross weight. With those three numbers you can calculate your freight per unit, and without them you are comparing suppliers on the least important number in the shipment.
Then the sample, then the test report that names the exact product and the factory, and then the order.
Where we fit
We are the manufacturer, which is why our minimum is 5 pieces per design rather than a carton each, and why designs mix freely in one order. A first order can be a handful of designs across bubble guns, bubble wands and water guns, consolidated into one shipment.
If you are coming to Yiwu, tell us when. If you are buying remotely, ask for samples and carton figures and we will treat it the same way. WhatsApp: +86 173 4881 6397.