Alibaba.com is the site most buyers know, and it is rarely the cheapest place to buy. Chinese wholesalers sell to each other on domestic platforms, and many of them sell by niche: one site for women's shoes, another for bags, another for car parts. Prices there are often lower, and the catch is that most of these sites are in Chinese only.

Below are 16 sites we checked, grouped by what they sell. Open the Chinese ones with your browser's translate button.

This article is general information. It is not financial, legal or tax advice. We are not affiliated with any site on this list.

General goods and small commodities

  • 1688.com: Alibaba's domestic wholesale site. Usually cheaper than alibaba.com. Chinese only.
  • yiwugo.com: the official platform of the Yiwu small-commodities market: toys, gifts, stationery, home goods.
  • chinagoods.com: Yiwu International Trade City's own platform.
  • made-in-china.com: factories, in English.
  • globalsources.com: English B2B, strong in electronics and gifts.
  • dhgate.com: small wholesale lots in English. Useful for testing a product before a bigger order.

Clothing

  • vvic.com: Guangzhou clothing wholesale.
  • 17zwd.com: clothing wholesale, works for drop-shipping.
  • 571xz.com: the Hangzhou Sijiqing women's clothing market.
  • hznzcn.com: Hangzhou women's wear.
  • 3e3e.cn: kids' clothing.

Shoes and bags

  • go2.cn: women's shoes.
  • sooxie.com: shoes wholesale.
  • bao66.cn: bags, with suppliers from Baigou and Guangzhou.

Cosmetics

  • nala.com.cn: cosmetics and beauty B2B, based in Hangzhou.

Car parts and accessories

  • qipeiren.com: an auto parts marketplace with thousands of manufacturers. Check the spelling: a similar domain, qupeiren.com, belongs to someone else.

Before the first payment

A cheap price is worth nothing if the deposit goes to the wrong account. Four checks before you pay:

  • Get a proforma invoice with the supplier's full company name, address and bank details.
  • Match the names. The account name on the bank details should be the company on the invoice. A salesperson's personal account or a "sister company" needs a written reason.
  • Confirm changed bank details by phone, on a number you already had, never in the same email or chat thread that sent the change.
  • Keep proof of both sides: your transfer record and the supplier's confirmation of the amount it received.

If you pay from USDT, the factory may still want yuan in its bank account, and that changes how the payment works. We cover it step by step in Paying Chinese suppliers with USDT.