Distributors
National and regional players, across general trade, bonded zones and cross-border e-commerce.
What you can find
What's in the database
Distributors, Tmall Partners, Douyin Partners, importers and channel specialists across China. Each one gets a structured profile: the real categories they run, real volume, commercial terms, operational capacity and our team's read on whether to recommend them, and for what kind of brand.
Not just names and email addresses. The kind of detail that actually decides whether a partner is the right fit.
Talk to us about your shortlistInside the working archive
Who is in it
Distributors, TPs, importers and channel specialists across China
Domestic and cross-border. Online and offline. Niche category specialists in the mix. A name only goes in when we've got a real reason to know it.
TPs
Tmall and Douyin Partners running flagship stores, content commerce and livestream.
Importers
Licenses, customs setup and warehousing for general trade and the bonded zone.
Offline operators
KA buyers, regional wholesalers and group-buying operators with real shelf access.
Categories coveredLive coverage
Beauty
Food and beverage
Fashion
Home
Wellness
Mother and baby
Pet
Supplements
Beauty
Food and beverage
Fashion
Home
Wellness
Mother and baby
Pet
Supplements
Mostly B2C, with B2B when the buyer is in China.
What we record
The fields that decide whether a partnership fits
Nine groups of fields make up every profile. Together they cover the ground a sales deck rarely does.
Company basics
Legal entity, headquarters, team size, ownership.
Real categories
Not what their website says. The categories we've actually seen them run.
Channels with real volume
Tmall, JD, Douyin, Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu, offline, cross-border. Which ones are core and which they only dip into.
Footprint
Cities, provinces, warehouses and where the sales team actually sits.
Commercial terms
Margin, exclusivity, payment terms, MOQs, marketing contribution.
Operational capacity
Volume they can realistically handle. Lead times. Customer service. Returns.
Brands they've worked with
Past and present, wherever we have direct visibility.
Reputation signals
What other brands actually say about them, on the record and off. Where they've succeeded, where they've come up short.
Our view
Recommend, recommend with caveats, avoid, or only-if-X.
What a profile looks like
A redacted snapshot
A real profile with the names and identifying detail stripped out. Same shape we use internally.
beyondcompass / partner.profileREDACTED
Premium skincare / Shanghai
[Distributor name redacted]
Mid-sized team. China-domestic. Tmall and Douyin first.
- Real categories
- Premium skincare and personal care. Took a swing at beverages a few years back, and it didn't stick.
- Channels
- Strong on Tmall flagship and Douyin self-broadcast. Patchy on Xiaohongshu. No offline footprint worth mentioning.
- Commercial terms
- Will take category exclusivity. Co-invests in marketing on the brands they actually believe in.
- Track record with our clients
- Two placed with them. One renewed and grew. The other walked after eighteen months over Douyin execution gaps. The founder is responsive. Operations turnover has been higher than we'd like.
Our view
Recommend for premium skincare from a certain GMV stage upwards. Watch the Douyin team carefully during diligence.
How the data gets in
One meeting at a time, over twenty years
A name doesn't land in the database because we spotted it on a trade show list. It lands because we've got a real reason to vouch for it, usually more than one.
Met them in person
Not a video call. In the room, usually more than once, with the people who actually run the operation day to day.
Walked the operation
Warehouse walkthroughs. Office visits. Retail audits. A few of those tours have surprised us in both directions.
Worked a real project
Six to twelve months on a real brand engagement gives you a kind of data that nothing else really matches.
Most names have been through at least two of those steps. Plenty have been through all three.
How the data stays current
China moves fast. The database has to keep pace.
Distributors restructure. TPs lose their best operators. A partner who was strong two years ago may not be the right name today.
It isn't real time. We don't pretend otherwise. It's actively maintained, which is more than you can say for most of the lists out there.
- 01
A new project closes
The fresh data goes straight back into the file.
- 02
A trusted contact flags a change
New ownership, a key operator gone, a category shift.
- 03
The same red flag, twice
Two independent sources, one warning. The profile gets a hard review.
- 04
Annual review
An end-to-end sweep for the shifts nobody flagged in real time.