Ask your China partner for one page a month, due on a fixed day. It covers sell-out by channel, stock and weeks of cover, price checks, returns, ad spend and what it returned, and next month’s plan. Every number names its source. If a partner can’t fill in this distributor sell-out report template, it can’t manage your brand.
Sources quoted here were checked November 8, 2026.
The monthly page feeds the quarterly score. Our China distributor KPI scorecard weights eight lines and scores them from three of these reports. Without the reports, the score is a guess.
Write the page into the contract before you sign. The difference between what a partner buys and what shoppers buy, and how to count weeks of cover, sit in sell-in vs sell-out with a Chinese distributor. This page is the form itself. Print the monthly China partner report and attach it to the agreement as an annex.
The six lines of a distributor sell-out report template
The same six lines work for an importing distributor, for a Tmall Partner (TP) running your Tmall Global store and for a Douyin Partner (DP) running your Douyin store. What changes is where each number comes from.
| Line | Source of the number | Distributor | Tmall Partner (TP) | Douyin Partner (DP) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sell-out by channel | A system export, never a retyped sheet | Units shipped to each outlet and sub-distributor, by SKU | Paid orders by SKU from Business Advisor, net of refunds | Orders by SKU from the Douyin shop back end, net of refunds |
| Stock and weeks of cover | Warehouse stock on the last day of the month | Stock by SKU and batch in its own warehouse | Bonded or domestic warehouse stock by SKU and expiry date | Same as TP |
| Price checks | Screenshots with date, platform and batch code | Your goods listed in channels you never approved | Store promotions against the agreed calendar | Livestream and creator prices against the agreed calendar |
| Returns | The month’s refund and return records | Goods sent back by outlets, and stock within three months of expiry | Refund rate by SKU, top three reasons, cross-border returns filed inside 30 days | Same as TP, split by livestream, short video and store page |
| Ad spend and return | The ad account statement | Co-funded marketing, with invoices and photos | Alimama ad spend, sales on the day and sales after refunds | Qianchuan spend, sales on the day and sales after refunds |
| Next month’s plan | The partner’s own forecast | Orders it will place, outlets it will open | Promotions, new listings, ad budget | Livestream schedule, creator deals, ad budget |
Business Advisor (生意参谋) is Tmall’s store analytics tool. Qianchuan is Douyin’s ad system, and Alimama runs Tmall’s. The three-month expiry flag is our rule of thumb; set yours from the product’s shelf life.
Where each number should come from
The second column matters most. A distributor’s own summary is easy to make and hard to check. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has seen how far such summaries can drift.
In an on-site review, the Shanghai Stock Exchange found that a company required its distributors to file monthly purchase, sales and stock details, yet the original filings differed widely from the summary figures its sponsor had used. In a second case, about 80% of the sampled distributors showed negative running stock. Source: Shanghai Stock Exchange (上海证券交易所), IPO review bulletin 2025 No. 3, via Sina Finance (新浪财经), June 2025. https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2025-06-05/doc-ineyykxk9666950.shtml
Negative stock means a distributor reported selling more than it could have held. Ask for the export from its stock ledger or dealer management system, with the file attached. Then trace one SKU a month back to your own shipping records.
A TP or DP is easier to check when the store is in your company’s name. Keep the main account and give the partner sub-accounts.
Tmall and Taobao sellers can open sub-accounts for third-party service providers. Sub-accounts use the store’s tools, Business Advisor included, within the permissions the seller grants, and the seller can query each sub-account’s operation records. Source: Taobao (淘宝), sub-account software licence agreement, revised October 2026. https://terms.alicdn.com/legal-agreement/terms/suit_bu1_tmall/suit_bu1_tmall201802012028_72666.html
With your own login you pull the same export the TP pulls. On Douyin, ask for a read-only seat on the shop back end as well. When the partner’s page and your export disagree, ask that month, not at year end.
Ad spend: ask for the return after refunds
An ad ratio can be quoted on orders the day they’re paid, before any refund. One listed brewer’s filing spells out exactly that.
Lanzhou Huanghe, a listed beer maker, spent 200.4 million RMB on Qianchuan in 2025 against 210.3 million RMB of sales, a ratio of 1.05. The sales figure did not deduct orders that shoppers later refunded or returned. Source: Beijing Xinghua CPA (北京兴华会计师事务所), reply on the Lanzhou Huanghe (兰州黄河) 2025 annual report inquiry, June 2026. https://static.cninfo.com.cn/finalpage/2026-06-13/1225369700.PDF
Douyin itself now offers a bid type aimed at that gap.
Douyin’s 2026 merchant support package includes “net transaction bidding”, which the platform says cuts ad money lost on orders refunded right after purchase. Source: China News Service (中国新闻网), January 2026. https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2026/01-08/10548441.shtml
So the ad line carries three figures for each tool: spend, sales on the day and sales after refunds. A partner that sends only the first two is showing you the better number.
Returns get their own line
A return costs twice. The sale disappears, and the parcel still has to be paid for in both directions. At the defaults in our three platform calculators, one returned order burns 30 RMB of fulfillment and return costs, 12% of a 250 RMB order (TheChinaPath calculator data, November 2026). That’s before the ad money spent to win it.
For cross-border stock, the dates matter as well.
A cross-border return applied for within 30 days of customs release, with the goods back at the original bonded site within 45 days, is not taxed, and the shopper’s annual allowance is restored. Source: General Administration of Customs (海关总署), Announcement 2020 No. 45, March 2020. https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2020-03/28/content_5496571.htm
A return that misses either date loses that treatment. The report should count how many did.
Price checks without breaking competition law
When the store is yours, so is the price, and a TP or DP reports against your promotion calendar. A distributor is different. It owns the goods, and China’s Anti-Monopoly Law bars you from fixing its resale price.
Article 18 prohibits an operator from reaching an agreement with a trading counterparty to fix the resale price to a third party or to set a minimum resale price to a third party. Source: Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China (2022 amendment), Ministry of Commerce (商务部) policy database, June 2022. https://policy.mofcom.gov.cn/claw/clawContent.shtml?id=97047
The distributor’s version of the line records where your goods turned up, with the date, the platform and the batch code. It never records a “price below” breach. Have a lawyer qualified in China read the annex before it goes into the contract.
The plan, the due date and the sign-off
The last line looks ahead to next month’s orders, promotions, listings and ad budget. A month later you hold the plan against what happened, and the partner explains each gap in writing on the same page.
Three months in, you’ll know if its forecasts mean anything.
Pick a due day, say the 10th, and name who signs on each side. A late page is a data point too, and our scorecard treats it hard: no report, and sell-out and weeks of cover score zero for the quarter.
For brands that want help after signature, our distributor management team runs the monthly reviews built on this page.
FAQ
What should a distributor sell-out report include?
Six lines, once a month: sell-out by channel and SKU, stock and weeks of cover, price checks, returns, ad or marketing spend with what it returned, and next month’s plan. Each line names its source, and the export file goes with the report. Keep it to one page so it actually arrives.
How do I check a Chinese distributor’s sell-out figures?
Ask for the system export behind each figure, not a summary typed into a spreadsheet. Each month, trace one SKU from your shipping records through the distributor’s stock and sales. Stock that runs negative means sales were overstated. A warehouse count once a year covers the rest.
Is the report different for a Tmall Partner or Douyin Partner?
The six lines stay the same. The sources change: a TP pulls sell-out from Business Advisor and ad results from Alimama, a DP from the Douyin shop back end and Qianchuan. With the store in your name, you pull the same exports yourself and compare.
What if my partner says the report is too much work?
A partner running your business properly already holds every one of these numbers, so the work is exporting them. Write the report and its due date into the contract before signature. Afterwards it’s a favor you have to ask for, and a partner that argues over one page a month is telling you how the first bad quarter will go.
Choosing the partner comes first. Our guides to finding a distributor, a Tmall Partner or a Douyin Partner set out the questions to ask before signing, and Compass holds partners we have met in person.
Updated November 8, 2026
Working on China? Let's grab a coffee.
Tell us where you are now and where you want to get to.
