Hire a distributor if your product needs a shelf. If Chinese shoppers already search for your category online, a Tmall Partner (TP) is the better first hire, and a Douyin Partner (DP) wins when the product sells once someone shows it working on camera. Most foreign brands start with one. Category picks it most of the time, and cash and timing confirm the pick.
The Tmall Partner vs distributor question in China mostly arrives as a pitch. The importer at the trade fair says you need a distributor, and the agency two aisles over says you need a store. Each one is describing what it sells.
The table below puts the three side by side. The partner fees come from our own calculators, run at one sales target so the columns compare, and every figure was checked on October 10, 2026.
Three partners, three jobs
A distributor buys your goods. It imports them under its own licenses, or buys from the importer that does, then sells them on to supermarket chains, convenience stores, restaurants, wholesalers and platform retail such as JD self-run and Tmall Supermarket. It earns the gap between what it pays you and what it sells for. Our guide to finding a distributor in China sorts out the four kinds of company that use the title.
A Tmall Partner runs a store for you on Tmall Global, Alibaba’s marketplace for imported goods. It handles the listings, the search ads, customer service and the campaign calendar around 618 and Double 11, China’s two big shopping festivals. It’s paid a monthly retainer plus a share of sales. The vetting is in our guide to finding a Tmall Partner.
A Douyin Partner does that job on Douyin, the short-video app, where sales happen in livestreams, short videos and through creators paid a commission. Foreign brands sell there through Douyin Global, the cross-border store format. Before you hand one your account, run the checks in our guide to finding a Douyin Partner.
The real split is who owns the stock. A distributor does, so it sets the price. A TP or a DP works on a store that should sit in your company, with your stock in a bonded warehouse, and the price stays yours. (Some TPs buy stock outright instead. Then they behave like a distributor.)
Tmall Partner vs distributor in China, side by side
| Line | Distributor | Tmall Partner (TP) | Douyin Partner (DP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it runs | Import, stock and sales into stores, restaurants, wholesale and platform retail | Your Tmall Global store: listings, search ads, service, campaigns | Your Douyin Global shop: livestreams, short videos, creators, ads |
| How it is paid | The margin between your export price and its selling price | 35,000 RMB a month plus 10% of sales | 30,000 RMB a month plus 5% of sales; creators paid per order on top |
| Cash before the first order, RMB | Close to zero; it buys the stock | 505,000, of which 450,000 refundable | 430,000, of which 405,000 refundable |
| Partner fees at 2 million RMB of sales | None billed; the margin is in your price | 620,000 RMB, 31% of sales | 460,000 RMB, 23% of sales |
| Time to first sale | Three to five months to a signed contract, then the first order | Eight to twelve weeks to a live store | Eight to twelve weeks to a live shop, then months to build content |
| Control you keep | Least: it owns the stock and the price | Most, if the store is in your company | Most, if the shop is in your company |
| Best for | Products that need a shelf or a salesperson | Categories shoppers search for by name | Products that sell when someone shows them |
TP and DP rows: TheChinaPath calculator data, October 2026, packaged food at the calculators’ default fees. Stock, ads and creator commission are not in them; the cash section below adds them. Timing: TheChinaPath distributor and store work, as published on this site.
Category decides first
Start with where your shopper buys. Most retail spending in China still happens away from a screen.
Online sales of physical goods reached 13.09 trillion RMB in 2025, up 5.2%, and made up 26.1% of China’s total retail sales of consumer goods. Source: National Bureau of Statistics (国家统计局), 2025 statistical communique, February 2026. https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfbhjd/202602/t20260228_1962662.html
That leaves about three yuan in four spent offline, in supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, pharmacies and specialty shops. No online store reaches that money. If your product needs a fridge, or a salesperson in front of a buyer, a distributor comes first.
The cross-border route has a ceiling, too.
Cross-border retail imports have been capped at 5,000 RMB per transaction and 26,000 RMB per shopper per year since January 1, 2019. A single item above 5,000 RMB, alone in its order, can still come in this way but pays full duty, import VAT and consumption tax. Source: Ministry of Finance, General Administration of Customs and State Taxation Administration (财政部 海关总署 税务总局), 财关税〔2018〕49号, November 2018. https://policy.mofcom.gov.cn/claw/clawContent.shtml?id=65769
Food is the category to watch. Online, it’s growing several times faster than the other goods the statistics bureau tracks.
Online sales of goods rose 4.3% to 8.42 trillion RMB in the first eight months of 2026. Food rose 15.9%, clothing 4.9% and everyday goods 1.1%. Source: National Bureau of Statistics (国家统计局), retail sales release, September 2026. https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202609/t20260915_1965311.html
So a packaged snack or a coffee capsule can start online. A chilled cheese still needs the shelf.
Online, the TP or DP call turns on how shoppers find you. Tmall Global works like an import department store with a search bar: people tend to arrive knowing the brand or the category and type it in. Foreign names keep arriving.
2,415 overseas brands opened their first China store on Tmall Global in 2025, from 52 countries and regions. More than 40,000 brands from over 110 countries and regions sell on the platform. Source: Sina Tech (新浪科技), citing Tmall Global, January 2026. https://finance.sina.com.cn/tob/2026-01-27/doc-inhithne5772830.shtml
Douyin sells what people haven’t searched for yet: a gadget that has to be seen working, a snack someone bites into on camera.
During the 2026 618 festival, more than 120,000 merchants doubled their livestream sales on Douyin from a year earlier. Creators with fewer than 1 million followers drove more than 80% of creator-led sales. The number of merchants selling over 10 million RMB through product cards, Douyin’s shelf listings, rose 82%. Source: China National Radio (央广网), on Douyin’s 2026 618 data report, June 2026. https://www.cnr.cn/mspd/jrhm/20260620/t20260620_527669642.shtml
Douyin’s shelf is growing, and that matters when you hire: a DP that only runs livestreams leaves the listings and search side of your shop unworked.
Cash and time to first sale
What the online partners cost
The online partners need cash first. We ran both of our calculators at the same target, a packaged-food store selling 2 million RMB in year one (about US$282,000 at our 7.1 planning rate), with every other input at its default.
| Year one at 2 million RMB of sales | Tmall Global with a TP, RMB | Douyin Global with a DP, RMB |
|---|---|---|
| Platform deposit, refundable | 50,000 | 5,000 |
| Annual platform fee | 30,000 | 0 |
| Bonded warehouse deposit and tax prepayment, refundable | 400,000 | 400,000 |
| Store setup and launch content | 25,000 | 25,000 |
| Cash before the first order | 505,000 | 430,000 |
| Partner retainer, 12 months | 420,000 | 360,000 |
| Partner commission on sales | 200,000 | 100,000 |
| Platform commission and payment fee | 60,000 | 50,000 |
| Paid ads at the default channel mix | 600,000 | 120,000 |
| Creator commission at the default channel mix | 80,000 | 320,000 |
| Cash out in year one, before stock, tax and logistics | 1,865,000 | 1,380,000 |
TheChinaPath calculator data, October 2026. These are model defaults, a yardstick for real quotes, and your partner’s terms and channel mix will move every line.
The partner fee alone is 620,000 RMB for the TP, 31% of sales, and 460,000 RMB for the DP, 23%. The wider gap sits in the marketing lines. The Tmall model spends on search ads, because that’s how a Tmall shopper finds a store. The Douyin model pays creators, who take a share of each order they drive, inside limits Douyin sets.
Douyin lets a brand offer creators 5% to 50% of an order’s paid amount on an offer open to all, and 5% to 80% on an offer limited to named creators. Source: Douyin E-commerce (抖音电商), affiliate commission settlement rules, August 2026. https://school.jinritemai.com/doudian/web/articlev0/112620
When a store closes in good standing, 450,000 RMB of deposits comes back on Tmall Global and 405,000 RMB on Douyin. (Refundable still means a year or more without that money.)
What a distributor costs
A distributor turns the cash question around. It pays you, and what matters is how fast. Ask for prepayment or a letter of credit on the first orders, since open account runs long in China.
Companies in mainland China gave customers 81 days of credit on average, against 70 days across Asia-Pacific, and late payments ran 73 days past due on average. Source: Coface (科法斯), APAC Payment Survey 2026, August 2026. https://www.prnasia.com/story/543914-1.shtml
You pay in margin. The distributor buys at your export price and keeps the spread, and an importer that carries stock doesn’t always keep much of it.
Pinlive Foods (品渥食品), a listed Shanghai importer of German dairy and beer, reported a 2025 gross margin of 16.24%, and 12.20% on dairy. Source: Eastmoney (东方财富网), April 2026. https://finance.eastmoney.com/a/202604223714189425.html
And once it owns the stock, the price is its call. You can suggest one.
China’s Anti-Monopoly Law bars a supplier from agreeing with a buyer on a fixed or minimum resale price, unless it proves the deal doesn’t restrict competition or its market share sits under the regulator’s threshold. Source: Ministry of Commerce (商务部) policy database, Anti-Monopoly Law (反垄断法), article 18, as amended June 2022. https://policy.mofcom.gov.cn/claw/clawContent.shtml?id=97047
How long each one takes
Time runs the other way. In our own work, a distributor contract takes three to five months from the first meeting to a signature, and food and cosmetics need their registrations before the first container ships. A cross-border store on either platform can take its first order eight to twelve weeks after the work starts, and it opens on the trademark you already hold at home.
Douyin Global admits an overseas-registered company with an overseas bank account and a mainland domestic agent that carries joint liability. A flagship store files the brand’s home-market trademark certificate, or its application receipt, valid for more than six months. Source: Douyin E-commerce (抖音电商), Douyin Global admission rules, revised July 2026. https://school.jinritemai.com/doudian/web/article/108056
On Douyin the live date only starts the clock. A DP spends the first months on content and on a bench of creators before the shop sells at the pace the calculator assumes.
The usual second partner
Brands that stay in China often add a second partner. Which one depends on where they started.
A brand that starts online with a TP usually adds a distributor when it wants supermarket shelves. That means general trade, the regular duty-paid import route, with a Chinese label and an importer of record. The TP keeps the cross-border store and the distributor takes offline, with the line between them written into both contracts by channel.
A brand that starts with a distributor tends to want its own store next, mostly to see its customers and hold its price online. Our comparison of a China distributor and your own store prices that hybrid.
The third pairing is TP and DP. A brand that sells well on Tmall Global adds Douyin to reach shoppers who haven’t searched for it yet. Some agencies run both platforms. Meet the people who would run the second store before you hand it to the first agency.
Whatever the order, the first partner shouldn’t get the second partner’s channel for free. Give a distributor exclusivity by channel and region, with a sales target attached and the right to take it back if the target is missed.
How to test before you commit
Each partner can be tried on a small scale first, and the test is different for each.
With a distributor, start with one region and one channel for the first year. Ask for prepayment on the first orders. Grant exclusivity only against a target, and get monthly sell-out reports so you see what shoppers bought as well as what the distributor ordered.
A TP or a DP is tested on ownership first. Open the store in your own overseas company and give the partner sub-accounts. Keep the ad accounts in your name. Ask for commission on net settled sales after returns, never on gross sales. Agree a review at six months with a sales floor, and a notice period short enough to act on it.
Two steps come before any of that. Run the calculators at your own sales target, since the default store above may not be yours. Then meet more than one candidate of the type you picked. A Compass shortlist usually takes two to three weeks from the brief and runs to three to five names (from Compass, September 2026), all of them partners we have met.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a Tmall Partner and a distributor in China?
A distributor buys your stock, imports it and resells it, mostly into physical retail, so it owns the goods and sets the price. A Tmall Partner runs your Tmall Global store for a monthly retainer and a share of sales. Your company stays the seller, so the stock and the price stay yours.
Which costs more, a Tmall Partner or a Douyin Partner?
At the calculators’ defaults, a TP costs more in fees: 620,000 RMB a year at 2 million RMB of sales, against 460,000 RMB for a DP. The bigger difference is marketing. The Tmall store spends mostly on search ads and the Douyin shop mostly on creator commission. Real quotes move both ways, so price the whole year before comparing.
Can I hire a distributor and a Tmall Partner at the same time?
Yes, and plenty of brands do. The distributor covers offline retail under general trade, and the TP runs the cross-border store online. Write the split into both contracts by channel, and check that the distributor’s exclusivity doesn’t reach the platforms. Expect the online price to set the floor shoppers compare everything else against.
Do I need a company in China to work with a TP or a DP?
No. Cross-border stores are opened by your overseas company. Douyin Global also asks for an overseas bank account and a mainland domestic agent that shares liability for the store, a role many partners or bonded warehouses take on. A distributor imports under its own licenses, so it needs no Chinese entity from you either.
Once you know which partner comes first, Compass finds the ones that already sell your category.
Get a shortlist of distributors, Tmall Partners or Douyin Partners for your category
Updated October 11, 2026
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