Nexus Bridge finds, verifies and negotiates with Chinese factories for European businesses. Our sourcers stand on the factory floor. We earn a commission you agree to in advance — not a markup on your purchase price.
We reply within one business day. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
Almost every story we hear falls into one of these six categories. Not because the people involved were careless, but because the chain is built so that you see what happened far too late. This is what we close off, phase by phase.
You negotiate for months with a middleman calling itself a factory, pay a margin you never see, and have no grip on the production itself.
We check the Chinese company registers for licence, capital and export rights, and we go there. The report states what they make themselves and what they subcontract.
The sample is perfect. The 3,000 units that arrive are not, and by then it is your word against the factory's.
The approved sample is recorded in writing and in photographs. The final inspection tests the bulk against it, using acceptance criteria you signed off in advance.
The usual agent takes a markup on the unit price or a fee from the factory. That gives him an interest in an expensive factory, not the right one.
We accept no fee, discount or kickback from a factory. You pay the factory directly and see its quotation exactly as it came in.
Inspecting after loading is not an inspection. It is a damage report you can do nothing with.
The final inspection happens before loading and by an independent inspector — never by the party that proposed the factory. You decide: accept, rework or reject.
Chinese New Year shuts factories for two to four weeks, orders get subcontracted without notice, and you find out when your own customer is already waiting.
You get a progress update from the factory every week. We plan around Chinese New Year, Golden Week and the Canton Fair rather than straight through them.
The unit price was right, the landed cost was not. Import duties, import VAT and freight land on top afterwards and your margin is gone.
HS code, incoterm, freight basis and an estimate of duties and import VAT are on paper before you pay a deposit.
This is not a list of values. These are commitments written into the order confirmation, and you can hold us to them.
Sourcing traditionally runs on an information gap: the agent knows the factory price, you do not. We invert that. You pay the factory yourself, you see the quotation as it arrives, and you pay us separately for the work.
Judging a factory by email and a catalogue is guesswork. Our people in China stand in the hall, speak the language, see the machines and the raw material stock, and assess the sample before it ships to Europe.
A good product in a generic polybag is not a brand yet. Packaging, labels, boxes and how it presents in your customer's hands are arranged in the same process as the production — at the same supplier or a second one.
The process is a module set, not a chain. Every phase also runs on its own, and packages are built from a selection of them — see modules.
You send us your product, quantities, budget and deadline. We test whether we can deliver it and whether the category suits us. If we cannot, we say so immediately.
We find and compare factories, verify them in the registers, request prices and visit. You only deal with us — the factories are called A, B and C until there is a signature.
The factory produces a sample and you pay for it directly. Our sourcer collects it, assesses it on site and records what deviates. Second round or move on.
Terms, incoterm, payment schedule and acceptance criteria are put on paper. You sign with us and order from the factory. Only after signature and payment do we release the factory name.
Our sourcer follows the line, runs informal interim checks and flags it when work is subcontracted or the schedule slips. Escalate or carry on — that call is yours.
An independent inspection company checks the bulk before loading, against the criteria you signed in advance. This is the last moment at which you can still intervene.
We propose a freight forwarder and coordinate the paperwork; you contract the freight directly. We take no margin on it and we do not guarantee the freight.
We go through the order: the real lead time, what disappointed, what has to change next round. If goods are rejected or damaged, we go back to the factory — not you.
Realistic total lead time from request to delivery: 15–29 weeks. With accelerators — a factory holding raw material, planning around the Chinese holidays, air freight for a first batch — 10–17 weeks. Those are figures from experience, not a guarantee: we do not sell speed as a promise.
The digits under each module show which phases it covers. You get prices after the intake, because they depend on category, quantities and whether a factory visit is needed. How we calculate is below.
The fastest way to see whether we deliver what we claim, without buying a whole process.
You already have a factory, but you want to know whether you are overpaying or too dependent on one party.
You handle production yourself, but you do not want anything loaded before someone has looked at it.
From request to delivery. For companies taking their own product into production and wanting it done properly.
You already sell a product that works, but it ships from a marketplace store. We move it to your own brand.
An add-on to a running production process: from factory product to something that looks like it belongs to a brand.
Most sourcing companies earn on the gap between what the factory charges and what you pay. We do not. That is why we can show you the quotation exactly as it came in.
We do not sit between your money and the factory. No markup on the unit price, no margin hidden in the freight, no pre-financing by us.
We invoice a commission on the order value in bands: the larger the order, the lower the percentage. The amount is agreed in advance and invoiced per phase, not in one go up front.
We accept no commission, discount or kickback from a supplier. It is written into our terms. You are our only client, and that has to hold when we advise against a factory too.
Here is the other side of it, stated plainly: you remain the importer and therefore responsible for product conformity, duties and VAT. Our liability is capped at the fee you have paid us. That is what our terms and conditions say, and we are not vague about it at the front door.
An agency that can handle everything handles nothing well. This falls outside our work — better now than halfway.
EU rules require a responsible person and CPNP registration. That is a specialism of its own, and we do not take it on at launch.
We plan around peak periods and report deviations the same week. But a factory in China is not a promise we can sign for.
You get the report, the prices and the risks first. Names follow on signature and payment. It is the only protection we have on our own work.
Samples, deposits, freight and inspections are paid directly to the party delivering them. We do not front the money.
We are not a freight forwarder. We propose one, coordinate the documents and check the file — the contract is yours.
If your category is outside our range or needs certification we cannot support, we say no in phase 0. Even when the money is on the table.
Five minutes to fill in. We read it and come back within one business day with a go, a no-go, or the two questions we still need answered.
It depends on what you take. The single modules — factory check, second supplier check, quality control — have a fixed price you know before we start. For a full production process we work with a commission on the order value in bands: the larger the order, the lower the percentage. The starting amount you pay at the outset is offset against that commission, so you do not pay for it twice. After the intake you get a quote with a fixed scope and a number, not a range.
Because otherwise there is no way to verify what we earn. The moment the money runs through us, we could hide a margin in the unit price and you would only have our word that we do not. This way you see the factory quotation as it arrives and our fee sits on a separate invoice. It also means you control the payment moments yourself.
Yes. You are the factory's customer, not us. After the process is finished you keep that relationship and can place repeat orders without us. What we do agree: you do not go around us during the running process in order to avoid the commission. That clause is in the terms, limited in time and limited to the factories we introduced.
Count on fifteen to twenty-nine weeks. That is the honest range including sample rounds and sea freight. With accelerators — a factory holding the raw material, planning around Chinese New Year, air freight for the first batch — you land at ten to seventeen weeks. We do not sell speed as a promise: those accelerators cost money and we offer them at the moment you have to decide on them.
You are the importer. That means you are responsible for product conformity, CE marking where it applies, import duties and import VAT. We deliver a service: finding, verifying, negotiating, checking and supervising. Our liability is capped at the fee you paid us for that service. We would rather say it now than argue about it later.
That is why the inspection sits before loading and not after. You sign off the acceptance criteria in advance, an independent inspector tests the bulk against them, and you decide whether to accept, rework or reject. If it is rejected, we take the conversation to the factory — you do not have to do that in Chinese. What we cannot do is compensate your damages as if we were the manufacturer.
Often, yes, but the factory sets the minimum order quantity and for custom work it sits higher than for an existing product with your logo on it. Below a few hundred custom units it gets difficult, and we are honest about that in phase 0. A factory check is usually the sensible first step: then you know what is possible before you buy a process.
We do not take on cosmetics. The EU requires a responsible person inside the Union and registration in the CPNP, and that is a specialism we will not attach our name to while we cannot fully cover it. The same applies to food and products with mandatory safety certification: we look case by case and say no when we cannot deliver it.
Us, every time. Two founders in the Netherlands and our own sourcers in China. All communication with the factory runs through us, so you are not negotiating in broken English with someone who benefits from you not asking further. You will not get an account manager who hands it to a team you never speak to.
