Certification and labelling
Cleared for your market before the goods leave China
Every market has its own requirements, and every one of them is cheaper to satisfy in the factory than at your border. Goods held at customs accrue storage, miss their season and sometimes go back. We find out what applies to your product and get it done before loading.
Who this is for
When this becomes your problem
Usually at one of these four moments, and the first one is much cheaper than the last.
Before you order
You want to know what your market will require, so the requirement can be built into the specification instead of retrofitted.
The factory says it is certified
They send a certificate. It may be genuine, expired, for a different model, or issued by a body your country does not recognise. Someone has to check which.
You are entering a new market
The same product that ships freely to one country needs a mark, a test report and local-language labelling in the next.
Customs has already stopped a shipment
The goods are at the border and every day costs money. We work out what is missing and how fast it can be produced.
Scope
What we do, and what you end up holding
What we do
- Establish which requirements actually apply to your product in your destination country
- Check any certificates the factory already has — validity, scope, model coverage, issuing body
- Arrange testing at an accredited laboratory and manage the samples
- Prepare the technical file the regulation requires
- Design the label to the destination's rules — language, units, warnings, importer details
- Have the marking applied at the factory, on the product and on the packaging
- Assemble the document pack customs will ask for
- Check the finished goods before loading, so the marking on the pallet matches the paperwork
What you get
- A written list of what your product needs, and what it does not
- Test reports from an accredited laboratory
- The technical file, assembled and complete
- Correct labelling applied in China, not stickers applied in your warehouse
- The document pack for customs clearance
- Photographs of the marked goods before dispatch
How it works
How it runs
The order is deliberate: we establish what is required before anyone pays for a test, because the most expensive tests are the unnecessary ones.
Product and market
What exactly the product is, what it is made of, how it is powered, who will use it and where it is going. Classification decides everything downstream.
Requirements
We establish which directives, standards and marks apply, and put it in writing so you can see what you are paying for.
Testing
Samples to an accredited laboratory. If the product fails, that is useful news at this stage and disastrous news later.
Documentation
Technical file assembled, declarations drawn up, certificates issued by the accredited body.
Marking
Label designed and applied at the factory, on product and packaging, before the goods are packed.
Pre-shipment check
We verify that what is on the pallet matches what is in the file. A mismatch found here is a correction; found at the border it is a hold.
Cost
What certification costs
Most of the cost is not ours — it is the laboratory's and the certification body's. We say that plainly because it changes how you should read a quote.
What the price depends on
- The product category and how many directives or standards apply to it
- Which market: a CE declaration, a Gulf conformity certificate and an INMETRO approval are different processes at different prices
- How much testing is needed, and whether the laboratory has to build a test rig for it
- Whether the factory already holds valid documents we can rely on
- How many models and variants are covered — a family is cheaper than each item separately
- How urgent it is: expedited laboratory slots exist and cost more
Tell us the product and the destination country and we come back with the list of what is required and an estimate of the total, ours and the laboratory's shown separately.
Questions
What people ask about certification
The factory says the product is already certified. Is that enough?
Sometimes, and it is worth twenty minutes to find out. We check the certificate is current, that it covers your exact model rather than a relative of it, and that the issuing body is recognised where you are importing.
Certificates that are genuine but irrelevant are extremely common, because the factory is not the one who gets stopped at your border.
Which marks are we actually talking about?
It depends entirely on the market. The European Union works on CE marking with a declaration of conformity. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states use SASO and the Gulf conformity mark. Brazil has INMETRO. Central Asian countries have their own regimes.
The first thing we do is tell you which of these applies to your product, in writing, before anything is spent.
How long does it take?
The variable is the laboratory, not us. Simple product categories can move in a couple of weeks; anything involving electrical safety, radio or materials in contact with food takes considerably longer.
We give you the realistic range at the start. If it will not fit your shipping date, better to know before the goods are made.
Can labelling be done after arrival instead?
In some markets and for some requirements, yes. In others the goods cannot legally cross the border unmarked, and relabelling in your own warehouse means unpacking every carton by hand.
Doing it at the factory costs a fraction of doing it at home. That is the whole argument for this service.
What if the product fails the test?
Then you have found out before you paid for a full production run, which is the cheapest possible moment to find out.
Usually a failure is a component or a material rather than the whole design, and it is fixable at the factory. We take the report back to them and work out what has to change.
Do you handle certification for goods we already imported?
We can help work out what is missing and arrange what is still arrangeable, but be aware that some documents cannot be issued retrospectively for goods that have already shipped. Bring us in before loading and the problem is administrative rather than legal.
Next steps
What this connects to
Certification touches the order at both ends: the factory that makes the goods and the customs post that receives them.
Request
Tell us the task — we will come back with questions and a plan
Four short steps. After you send it, you will see a confirmation with your name on it, and a person from the Guangzhou office picks it up during Chinese working hours.
If you would rather write than fill in a form, the messenger buttons in the chat window reach the same team.