Compass is our private database of distributors, Tmall Partners, Douyin Partners and importers. We have met every one in person, vetted them on site and, in plenty of cases, worked alongside them on real brand projects.
Google "China distributor database" and what comes back is a stack of scraped lists with a contact form bolted on the front. A thousand names by lunchtime, almost none of them right for your brand.
We've watched brands sign with a name lifted straight off one of those lists. Four months in, they find out the partner has never really run their category. Or that the warehouse they toured was rented for the morning.
The damage almost never stays inside the year. Lost shelf. A brand rebuild nobody budgeted for. A launch window that will not come around again.
Pallets in. Pallets stayed.
Half an hour to an hour, on a call. Your category, your stage and what you're really trying to pull off in China. A cross-border test. A domestic launch. The quiet replacement of a distributor who's stopped picking up the phone. Sometimes something we've never seen before, which is fine too.
We come back with a map of who actually operates in your space, plus three to five partners worth meeting. Each one with a short brief: strengths, weak spots and where to push when you sit down to negotiate.
Most of these partners already know us. You walk in with a relationship behind you, which usually puts the A-team in the room rather than the pitch team.
Finding the right partner in China usually swallows a quarter. We start with the answer.
Scraped directories: Bulk uploads, scraped from public sources
Compass: One meeting at a time
Scraped directories: A company name. Maybe an email.
Compass: Real categories, real volume, payment terms and fit for your brand
Scraped directories: A few months
Compass: Fifteen
Scraped directories: A list of maybes
Compass: A shortlist worth meeting
Distributors, Tmall Partners, Douyin Partners, importers and channel specialists across China. Online and offline, national and regional, with niche category specialists in the mix. A name only goes in when we have a real reason to know it.
Who is on file
National and regional players, across general trade, bonded zones and cross-border eCommerce.
Tmall and Douyin Partners running flagship stores, content commerce and livestream.
Licenses, customs setup and warehousing for general trade and the bonded zone.
KA buyers, regional wholesalers and group-buying operators with real shelf access.
Categories
Mostly B2C, with B2B when the buyer is in China.
Entering China? Replacing a partner that has stopped pulling its weight? Still working out the right shape for distribution in your category? The first call is short. Most people know inside half an hour whether this is the right kind of help for them. If it is not, we can usually point you to someone whose work is.
No commission from distributors. Ever.
