How to purchase? Ordering promotional products from China, step by step

Most buyers arrive with a product, a quantity and a date, and want to know what the next few weeks look like. This is the whole route — from the message you send us to the cartons at your door — with the numbers we will hold ourselves to at each step.

1. Send three things

We can quote almost anything, but three details decide how fast and how close the price is:

The product — a category, a photo, a link, or a sketch. If it is not something we list, that is normal: most of our projects start from a reference.
The quantity — this decides which price tier you land in and which factory fits the run.
The decoration — one-colour screen print, full-colour UV, laser engraving, embroidery, or custom packaging. “Not sure” is a valid answer; we will propose one.

Helpful but optional: your target delivery date (it decides fast-track versus standard production, and air versus sea), the delivery country and postcode (DDP or FOB), your logo file (AI, PDF, PNG or JPG), and anything about material, packaging or testing. If the goods need to go to several addresses, say how many — we send an address-list template and quote the split with the order.

Name and email are the only fields we insist on. Three details get you a price; without them we can only send a range and tell you what is missing.

2. What comes back, and when

Within 2 hours — an automatic receipt and a named person who owns your request.
Within 24 hours — our first reply: a price if we can price it, or exactly what is blocking it.
Within 48 hours — the formal quotation: tiered unit prices at your quantities, decoration options, production time, carton size and CBM, and the shipping channel we recommend. Quotes are valid for 15 days.

3. Sample before the bulk run

A digital mockup is free and takes one to two working days. A physical sample is $40–70 including international courier for an existing style with your print, or $80–300 plus tooling for a custom shape or material. The sample fee is refunded once the bulk order is placed.

Sampling takes 3–7 days for a reprint and 10–14 days for custom work. The sample ships with a sample mark and packing-list photos, and a spec sheet that states material, weight, colour numbers and print position — the same standard the bulk run will be held to. Sign the sample and it becomes the approved reference.

4. Place the order

You send the final logo file (vector if you have it) and sign the proforma invoice. We send a production schedule with the start date, the completion date and the cut-off for the vessel or flight. Any change after that runs through a written change order, because it moves both price and dates.

Payment for new clients is 30% deposit by T/T with 70% against a copy of the bill of lading.

5. Production and inspection

How long production takes depends on how far the product is from something already on the line:

Fast-track print run — 5–8 days. A standard style, printed with your logo, in a smaller quantity. With express shipping that is 10–15 days from inquiry to your door.
Standard production — 20–35 days. An existing style with chosen material or colour, in a larger quantity.
Custom tooling — 35–50 days. A new shape or a product built to your drawing.

During the run you hear from us at four points, whether or not you ask: at 30% we send photos and a short video from the line; at 60% we check the first-offs in print and send you the photo; at 90% the pre-shipment inspection is done to AQL 2.5 and you get the report with packing photos; at 100% every carton is marked, the packing list goes inside, and every carton is photographed before the container is sealed.

If something goes wrong we tell you the day we find it, with two ways forward and what each one does to the price and the date. Nobody hears “a small problem” on the shipping day.

6. Testing, if your buyer asks

Prop 65, CPSIA, FDA food-contact, REACH, GRS — testing is triggered by your buyer or your market, not stocked as a certificate. You pay the laboratory its own price and we pass the invoice through with nothing added. The report is issued in your name, not ours.

Testing runs alongside production over 5–10 working days, so it does not push the ship date. If a test fails, we correct the material or the process and retest at our cost.

7. Shipping and clearance

Express — 5–7 days. Samples, urgent orders, small runs of high-value items.
Air freight plus delivery — 12–16 days. Medium quantities where the date matters more than the rate.
Sea freight plus delivery — 25–30 days. Large replenishment runs; the cheapest route, mostly consolidated containers.

DDP door to door is the default; FOB Ningbo or Shanghai and EXW are there if you have your own forwarder. Goods from several factories are collected at our Yiwu or Ningbo warehouse, marked, listed on one packing list and shipped as one consignment — that is the part of this service most buyers cannot get from a factory directly.

Every shipment comes with a packing list, invoice, bill of lading, certificate of origin where it applies and the test report if there was one. The date on your quotation is written as production days plus channel days — an arrival window, not a guess. If the cartons need to reach several addresses, they are split, labelled and tracked separately, one tracking number per address.

8. Repeat orders

The same SKU at the same quantity keeps the price you last paid, excluding copper and cotton moves, which we flag before you commit. There is no new sample and no new artwork check. New SKUs from the same program can join the same consolidated shipment, and each Q4 we send our regular clients a price commitment for the coming year.

Start here

Email freyaiv@magicpromoinc.com, call 626 7908 790, or message WhatsApp +86 190 5819 9220. Put the product, the quantity and the date in the first message — if the date is tight, put the date first, and we will tell you on the same day whether it can be met.