Frequently Asked Questions

Transparency, risk signals, and how we help buyers source with greater confidence.

Chaperon Supply is a platform that gives much needed transparency and risk signals to help buyers source better, and ultimately creates a trusted community for buyers and sourcing agents to communicate and make transactions.

No. We're not a platform for suppliers, but rather a platform for buyers. Think of this as the layer you check before you send money. Once Agent Matching launches, you'll be able to post your product requirements and let suppliers and agents come to you.

Not all suppliers are indexed yet, especially smaller or newer ones. It doesn't mean they're bad. It just means they may operate domestically, export through intermediaries, or haven't been searched yet.

You can request a lookup if needed.

Because it's nearly impossible to do so. You should be extra careful when a site vouches for certain suppliers, they might have commissions involved.

Kind of. There are definitely some signals that indicate danger. For example, if a supplier is a credit defaulter or their registration status is "revoked," those are clear red flags.

Some cases come down to cultural differences and the way business is conducted. We've seen the same sales rep answer calls for four different factories. We've seen sourcing agents ship goods to a local address to evade platform fees.

That doesn't necessarily mean they will scam you. So we won't make definitive claims, but we try to get as close as possible to help you reduce risk.

We aggregate data from public Chinese company registry records, shipment/customs-derived data, direct factory outreach, and user-submitted and public experience reports.

No, and we'd be lying if we said it was. We're continuously expanding our database by adding new supplier records and sourcing discoveries.

We intentionally avoid having supplier profiles. Since we don't represent any supplier, having profiles for certain suppliers could be seen as favoritism and unfair to others.

Typically:

  • whether they have export experience
  • if factory visits are allowed
  • basic operational confirmation
  • any unusual or inconsistent responses

It's not a full audit—more like ground-truth validation.

P.S. Since these are domestic factories, chances are they don't have English-speaking staff. This feature is more aligned with the Agent Matching feature in the near future, or for sourcing agents themselves to use.

Most Alibaba suppliers already operate in English. Our verification focuses on domestic factories, where communication barriers create more risk.

Because the supplier name you see on Alibaba might not be the company's official English name. Chinese companies don't need an English name to register, so we often need more than just the Alibaba name to find accurate registry information.

Yes. If there is verifiable evidence that something is inaccurate, we review and update it accordingly.

You post what you want to source. Agents apply. We:

  • Verify agent identity (KYC)
  • Provide background context
  • Help reduce the risk of working with unknown intermediaries
  • Keep track of interactions so if there's dishonesty, there are consequences
  • Trusting platform badges too much
  • Skipping verification
  • Assuming export history = reliability
  • Not understanding domestic vs export structures
  • Greed, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is