A thousand names by lunchtime
Scraped lists with a contact form bolted on the front. Not one tells you who actually moves skincare through Watsons.
Find a partner
ScrollThe right partnerdecides your China business.
Compass is our private database of distributors, Tmall Partners, Douyin Partners and importers across China. We use it to find the one that already works your category, and already knows its retailers and KOLs. Every company in it, we have met in person and vetted on site.
Have a Compass account?Log in
Distributor or platform partner in China?Register your business
The problem
Anyone can hand you a list. You need the partner who already runs your category.
Your partner is most of your market
One who runs your category walks in with the retail buyers and the livestream hosts. One who doesn't learns it all on your budget.
You find out at month four
Lost shelf. A rebuild nobody budgeted for. A launch window that won't come around again.
Channel by channel
Every channel needs its own partner.
A TP runs your flagship day to day. The right one has already run stores in your category, knows the platform's category managers and plans 618 and Double 11 a year out. That's how you get festival traffic instead of paying for every click.
Partner: TP (trade partner)Tmall, JD
Douyin sells through content. The right DP already books the livestream hosts and creators your buyers watch, and knows which ones actually convert in your category. The wrong one buys traffic with your budget. For years.
Partner: DP (Douyin partner)Douyin shop, livestreams, creators
They buy your stock and resell it through their own channels. The right one already sells your category to those platform buyers, so your listing lands on a shelf that moves.
Partner: Online distributorJD self-run, Tmall Supermarket, Hema
Stores and wholesale, city by city. The right distributor already has the KA buyers, the regional wholesalers and the shelf space in your category. You don't need a sales team of your own in China.
Partner: Offline distributorSupermarkets, specialty chains, wholesale
Your partner decides who stocks you and who talks about you. So that is where we start.How we work
How we are different
A database, not another directory
How names get added
Scraped directories: Bulk uploads, scraped from public sources
Compass: One meeting at a time
What we actually know about them
Scraped directories: A company name. Maybe an email.
Compass: The categories they really run, the retailers they sell into, the KOLs they work with
Years spent building it
Scraped directories: A few months
Compass: Fifteen
What you walk away with
Scraped directories: A list of maybes
Compass: The partner who already knows your market
What it covers
Filed by the category they really sell.
Distributors, Tmall Partners, Douyin Partners, importers and channel specialists across China, domestic and cross-border. We file each one by the categories we have seen them run, not the ones on their website. A name only goes in when we have a real reason to know it.
Who is on file
Distributors
National and regional players, across general trade, bonded zones and cross-border eCommerce.
TPs
Tmall and Douyin Partners running flagship stores, content commerce and livestream.
Importers
Licenses, customs setup and warehousing for general trade and the bonded zone.
Offline operators
KA buyers, regional wholesalers and group-buying operators with real shelf access.
Compass
Legal entity, headquarters, team size, ownership.
Not what their website says. The categories we've actually seen them run.
Tmall, JD, Douyin, Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu, offline, cross-border. Which ones are core and which they only dip into.
Cities, provinces, warehouses and where the sales team actually sits.
Margin, exclusivity, payment terms, MOQs, marketing contribution.
Volume they can realistically handle. Lead times. Customer service. Returns.
Past and present, wherever we have direct visibility.
What other brands actually say about them, on the record and off. Where they've succeeded, where they've come up short.
Recommend, recommend with caveats, avoid, or only-if-X.
Categories
- Beauty
- Food and beverage
- Fashion
- Home
- Wellness
- Mother and baby
- Pet
- Supplements
Mostly B2C, with B2B when the buyer is in China.
Get in touch
No obligation. No long pitch.
Entering China? Replacing a partner that has stopped pulling its weight? Tell us your category. The first call is short, and by the end of it you will know whether we have the right partner on file. If we do not, we will say so, and usually point you to someone who can help.
Still costing the platform side? Our free budget calculators put a first-year number on Tmall Global, JD Worldwide and Douyin before you brief us.
No commission from distributors. Ever.
