The China product team you can't justify hiring.
You'd love someone from your team on the ground in China, finding new product, holding factories to account, and getting quotes back the same day. That's what Foundry is.
No cost. No lock-in. No contact with your clients, ever. *China business hours
- Quote turnaround
- 4 business hours*
- Pricing
- Landed AUD, 3 tiers
- Before it ships
- Photo QC, you approve
- Operated by
- Tengfei Jinbao Ltd
No single factory makes everything. So we don't pretend to work from one city.
China isn't one manufacturing base. It's a set of specialised clusters, each with decades of depth in one category. Sourcing a stainless bottle in the city that makes tech gadgets is how you end up paying more for something worse.
Your brief gets routed to the cluster that's actually built for it, not to whichever factory happens to answer first.
You already know what indent orders cost you.
Your client wants something different. You email four factories. Two reply in three days, one quotes FOB in USD with no MOQ, one doesn't reply at all. By the time you've built the landed cost in a spreadsheet, the client has bought a branded bottle from someone faster.
Then the real waiting starts: ten weeks with no idea what's happening, while your client emails you every Monday asking where it is.
- 01quote_took_four_days deal lost
- 02catalogue_looks_identical_to_competitors
- 03no_visibility_weeks_3_through_9
- 04quality_issue_found_after_arrival
- 05compliance_docs_chased_manually
- 06liability_sits_with_you_as_importer
- 07margin_squeezed_from_both_ends
Same factories. Completely different experience.
Foundry isn't a catalogue and it isn't a marketplace. It's the sourcing function you'd build in-house if you could afford to.
the whole pitch
The honest objection is quality.
So here's exactly how we handle it.
Under Australian Consumer Law, the importer is treated as the manufacturer. When you place an indent order, that liability is yours. We treat it as ours too, and we document every step so you can show your client the same thing you were shown.
Factory vetting
Audit certification, capacity verification, and a sample in hand before anything is committed. We don't quote on factories we haven't worked with or checked.
Pre-production sample
Produced and signed off by you before tooling or bulk begins. Nothing goes to the line on a verbal approval.
Mid-production check
Photo evidence from the line while there's still time to correct it. Most quality failures are visible here and invisible at the port.
Pre-shipment inspection
AQL 2.5, photographic report, measurements and a defect log. Sent to you for approval. If you don't approve it, it doesn't ship.
Compliance verification
Applicable test reports, declarations and certificate of origin gathered before dispatch, so your client's procurement team gets an answer, not a delay.
Landed delivery
Customs cleared, delivered to your nominated address, documentation handed over. One party accountable from brief to dock.
Foundry Membership
The way in. You don't have to place an order to use it, and you never have to pay for it.
The Drop every month
Six to eight products your competitors aren't showing anyone. Curated, not dumped.
- Landed AUD price at three quantity tiers, forwardable to your client the same morning
- MOQ, lead time and decoration options stated on every item
- What's moving in the market, and what's changed in freight and FX
- Priority quote turnaround on anything you see
- Access to the brief portal describe a concept, not just a product code
Membership
We make money when you place an order. Not before. Charging for the membership would defeat its purpose, so we don't.
Join the membershipNever more than eight items. Curation is the point.
We will never approach your clients.
It's the first thing you thought when you read this page, and you were right to. It's written into every agreement we sign as a non-solicitation clause, and it's built into the product: the tracking link your client receives carries your logo, not ours. Your client never needs to know we exist. That's the design, not a courtesy.
Six fields. Four hours.* One quote you can forward.
You don't need a product code or a factory link. "Christmas gifting for a corporate client, something different, around $18 a head" is a complete brief.
…that's genuinely all we need.
Tell us what you need
A product, a photo, a competitor link, or just the concept and the budget. If we need to narrow it, we'll ask once, not four times.
We come back within four business hours*
Three quantity tiers, landed AUD, MOQ, realistic lead time, decoration options and a mockup. One page. Formatted so you can put your logo on it and send it straight to your client.
Sample before you commit
You hold it before bulk begins. If we've promised four hours and missed it, the sample is on us.
Production, inspected and visible
Six-Point Assurance runs. You get a tracking view to pass to your client, and an inspection report to approve before anything leaves the factory.
Landed, cleared, delivered
Delivered to your address with the compliance pack. One party accountable the whole way.
Guarantees, not adjectives.
Anyone can say "reliable" and "quality-focused". These are the commitments we'll accept a cost for.
Four hours, or the sample is free*
A structured quote within four business hours of a complete brief. Miss it, and your first sample on that enquiry costs you nothing.
Nothing ships without your approval
You see the pre-shipment inspection report and photos before dispatch. No approval, no shipment. No exceptions for deadlines.
Off-spec, we remake it
If it arrives materially different to the approved sample and spec, we remake the order at our cost.
Documentation included
Applicable test reports, declarations and certificate of origin supplied as standard. Not quoted as an extra line.
Landed AUD, always
Every quote lands in Australian dollars with freight, duty and GST accounted for. No FOB maths left on your desk.
Non-solicitation, in writing
We do not contact, quote or market to your clients. Contractual, permanent, and the reason the tracking view is white-labelled.
* Four business hours means four working hours on the China production clock: Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 6:00pm China Standard Time (UTC+8). A brief sent at 4:00pm Melbourne time on a Tuesday is quoted by roughly midday Wednesday, Melbourne. Briefs arriving over a weekend or a Chinese public holiday start counting from the next working morning. We say this plainly because a promise you can't check isn't worth making.
No surprises at invoice stage.
- Deposit
- 50% at purchase order
- Balance
- Before shipment
- Account terms
- Reviewed after three orders
- Currency
- Quoted in AUD, landed
- Quote validity
- 14 days (FX movement)
- Membership
- Free, permanently
We fund production before you pay. These terms are what makes that possible, and what keeps us solvent enough to still be here on your fourth order.
The questions you were going to ask anyway.
"I already have someone in China."
Good keep them. Most of our partners do. The question isn't who you use, it's what you're missing: quotes that come back in hours instead of days, product you haven't already seen in three other catalogues, and an inspection report you can forward to your client. If your current contact does all of that, you don't need us.
"Isn't overseas sourcing risky? Our industry says so."
Some of it is, and pretending otherwise would be insulting. The risk isn't the country. It's an unvetted factory, no pre-production sample, and no inspection before shipment. That's what Six-Point Assurance exists to close. You approve the sample, you approve the inspection report, and nothing ships without you.
You are also the importer, which under Australian Consumer Law means you carry manufacturer-level liability. We'd rather you knew that from us than found out later.
"What stops you going direct to my client?"
A signed non-solicitation clause, and the fact that our entire model depends on trade partners trusting us. We built the tracking view white-labelled specifically so your client never sees our name. If we broke that once, in an industry this small, we'd be finished and we know it.
"Ten-week lead times don't work for my clients."
Sometimes they don't, and we'll say so before you quote rather than after you've promised. Air freight brings selected items down considerably at a cost we'll show you upfront. Where the deadline genuinely can't be met, we'll tell you to use a local stock item instead. We'd rather lose the order than lose you the client.
"Free membership what's the catch?"
There isn't one, and the economics are simple enough to explain. The Drop costs us almost nothing to produce because we're already looking at these factories. It earns its keep when one item in it turns into an order. Charging a membership fee would shrink the list and defeat the purpose.
"Our minimums are small. Is 200 units worth your time?"
Often yes. Low-volume bespoke runs are exactly where local stock suppliers can't compete and where we're most useful. Some items carry tooling costs that only make sense at volume, and we'll tell you which, in the quote, rather than letting you find out.
"Who actually are you?"
Foundry is the Australian merchandise arm of The China Sourcing Agent, operated by Tengfei Jinbao Limited. The group runs sourcing, private-label manufacturing and its own industrial product brand out of China. This isn't a first attempt at factory relationships. It's an existing operation pointed at a market we think is underserved.
"Can you guarantee my client will love it?"
No. Nobody honest can. What we can guarantee is that you'll see it, hold it and approve it before it ships, so the surprise happens at sample stage, where it's cheap, instead of on delivery week, where it isn't.
Start with the next Drop.
Six to eight products, priced landed in AUD, in your inbox once a month. No cost, no lock-in, and no contact with your clients.
If you'd rather test us properly, send a live brief with the form and see what comes back in four hours.*