Your trademark is exposed
China registers a trademark to whoever files first, not to whoever used it first. Showing a product at a trade show, or to a distributor, before filing is how brands end up buying back their own name.
Read the note →Diagnostic
Where do you actually stand? Eight questions.
No email, no form, no account. The answer appears on this page and nothing is sent anywhere — the whole thing runs in your browser.
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Which way are you going?
What we would look at first
Based on what you answered, in the order that avoids rework.
Deal with this first
These block the ones below.
Prepare this
Not urgent today, expensive if left.
This is working
Worth knowing, and worth saying to a partner.
Cosmetics need a decision, and a person in China
Your route — notification or registration — is decided by how your claims are worded, and the difference is months. In both cases a domestic responsible person established in China has to hold the filing.
Read the note →Your establishment has to be registered before anything ships
Chinese customs registers the site, not the product, and the framework changed in 2026. Without the registration number on the declaration, the goods are refused at clearance.
Read the note →The Chinese class decides your calendar, and it is not your class
A device that is class II in Europe can be class III in China, which is the difference between a dossier and a clinical trial. Have it classified against the Chinese catalogue before you budget anything.
Read the note →Find out whether your product is regulated, first
This single answer decides whether China is a six-month project or a three-year one. It costs almost nothing to establish and it governs every other decision you are about to take.
Read the note →Your deadline and your product do not agree
A regulated product cannot reach a Chinese shelf in under six months through the normal route. Cross-border e-commerce can carry the first sales while the file runs — used as a market test, not as the strategy.
Read the note →Nobody reads Chinese on your side
This is survivable and it has a specific cost: you cannot verify anything yourself. Contracts, business licences, supplier claims — all of it reaches you filtered by whoever translates.
Read the note →You have not been yet
Plenty can be done remotely, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you are buying. A first visit changes a negotiation more than any number of calls, but it is not a prerequisite for everything.
Read the note →Qualify the supplier before you negotiate the price
The order of operations decides the outcome. Who you are actually dealing with — factory or trader, and what the business licence says — is knowable in minutes and changes everything that follows.
Read the note →A website is not how Chinese buyers find you
The enquiry normally starts by adding a person on WeChat, after a silent check of your credibility. That makes your site a reference check rather than a funnel, and it changes what you should build.
Read the note →Stalled projects fail in a recognisable order
Most of them stop for one of six reasons, and each gives a warning months earlier. Identifying which one you are in is usually faster than starting over.
Read the note →Test before you commit
There are light ways to find out whether Chinese demand exists for your product, before an entity, a distributor or a registration. Doing them first is what separates a two-year project from an expensive year.
Read the note →Your trademark is filed
That removes the single most common and most expensive surprise in this market.
Read the note →Start with which European rules apply to your product
Everything else — testing, marking, who represents you, which registrations you need — follows from that one answer. Getting it wrong invalidates the work that comes after it.
Read the note →Producer responsibility is what stops sales in practice
It is national and per stream — packaging, electrical equipment, batteries — and marketplaces enforce it by delisting, quickly and without discussion. Most exporters discover it that way.
Read the note →Anything with a cell in it is a battery product
Registration is country by country, with an authorised representative in each. Several parts of the regulation have been postponed, so verify against the current text rather than a date someone quoted you.
Read the note →Nobody is answerable for your product in Europe
European rules require an identifiable responsible party for many categories, and liability runs down a chain that starts with the importer. Without one, listings get suppressed and distributors will not sign.
Read the note →Substances are the expensive thing to discover late
Chemical restrictions apply across sectors and can force a design change. Finding one after the tooling is made means a new mould, not a new supplier.
Read the note →Textiles face labelling and unsold-stock rules
Fibre composition and origin have to appear in the languages of the markets you sell in, and European buyers increasingly ask which mill dyed the fabric, not only which factory sewed it.
Read the note →Holding stock in a country creates obligations there
Tax registration generally follows the stock, not your establishment. Marketplace logistics programmes move inventory between countries to shorten delivery, which creates obligations you did not choose.
Read the note →Choose where to land before you choose a distributor
Free movement covers goods, not commercial positions. The logistics answer and the market answer are rarely the same country, and they do not have to be.
Read the note →What European buyers check while they say nothing
They negotiate on price and decide on risk. A silence after a good meeting is usually a risk question that was never asked out loud.
Read the note →Your compliance base is in place
That puts you ahead of most exporters arriving in Europe, and it is the part that is hardest to catch up on later.
Read the note →You already have the hardest evidence
A European customer who has bought once is worth more in a negotiation than any certificate. It is the reference that opens the next three.
Read the note →If you want a second opinion on any of this, send it to us. The button below puts your answers into an email — you see it before it leaves, and you can delete anything you would rather not send.
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