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How it works

How it works Plan your first order

Contract to dock

Nothing here is a surprise. This is the whole sequence from the list you send us to the pallet on your dock, in order, with the point at which the price stops moving marked.

You send us your list
SKUs, quantities, specs - or a past invoice, or a photo of a printed sheet. Messy is fine. We would rather read an imperfect list today than a tidy one next month, and the first thing we do with it is tell you what we could not read.
We find who actually makes it
Most of what is sold as a factory is a trading company. Our engine reads public customs records to work out who really manufactures a product, and treats “factory” as a verdict that has to be corroborated rather than a badge a supplier can award itself.
You get a delivered price, with its lines
Goods, tariffs and duties, ocean freight and delivery, customs entry, and the delivered total. Every duty is stacked the way customs stacks it rather than averaged, so you can see what the tariff is doing to the number instead of guessing.
Samples, if you want them
We air-freight samples from the factory before you commit to an order. For anything where the spec is the product - a gauge, a wear layer, a moisture content - it is worth the week.
You sign one contract
One sales confirmation with Donkey Trade Inc. It names every product and quantity, one price delivered to your zip with duties and tariffs included, and a delivery date. Two signatures. It is the only paper you sign, and the price is fixed from the moment you sign it. You pay 30% when you sign, and the balance later.
Production, and your name on the carton
If you want your own branding, send the artwork and we proof it with the factory before production starts. Printing is usually what sets the lead time on a first order.
Our own people inspect before it ships
Not a third party and not a photo the factory chose. Our inspector counts the cartons, checks size, weight and carton marks against the spec, and photographs the floor. You get the report.
We book the freight, clear customs and pay the duty
Ocean, entry and delivery are ours to run, and they are already inside the price you signed. We are the importer of record, so the customs entry is in our name rather than yours, and cargo insurance is inside the price too. If freight or tariffs move after signing, that is our problem rather than a surcharge on your invoice.
It arrives at your dock
We schedule the drop around your receiving hours. One company has been responsible the whole way, so there is one number to call if anything is wrong.
The next one is easier
The lines you buy every month can go onto a standing order at a held price, and the second container is mostly a conversation about what to add.

See how the number is built

What buyers ask before a first order

Who can buy from Donkey?

US businesses that buy inventory by the pallet or the container: wholesalers, distributors, builders and multi-unit operators.

In practice that means a business with somewhere to put a container and a reason to buy one: a wholesaler or distributor with a warehouse, a builder with a project, a multi-unit operator buying for several sites. What matters is not your size but whether you buy the same things repeatedly. If you do, buying them by the container is almost always cheaper than buying them by the pallet, and the gap is the margin someone else is currently taking.

How is Donkey different from an importer or a sourcing agent?

An agent finds you a factory and steps away. An importer sells you what it already bought. Donkey works directly with the factory, shows you every line of the price, inspects the goods before they ship and stays responsible until they're at your dock.

A sourcing agent

An agent finds you a factory and steps away.

An importer

An importer sells you what it already bought.

Donkey

Donkey works directly with the factory, shows you every line of the price, inspects the goods before they ship and stays responsible until they're at your dock.

The difference is where the responsibility sits. An agent is paid to introduce you to a factory and their job ends at the introduction, so the quality, the freight and the customs entry become yours. An importer has already bought the goods and is selling you their inventory at their price, which is why you cannot see what it cost them. Donkey works directly with the factory, shows you every line of the price, inspects the goods before they ship, and stays responsible until they are on your dock. You are buying from one company, on one contract, and that company is us.

What if tariffs change after I sign?

Your price doesn't. If costs move under a locked price, that's our problem.

  • Locked at signing.
  • Freight booked at signing, not at sailing.
  • Duty stacked line by line off the live table, 242 measures, twice a day.
  • FX priced at signing, the factory paid in RMB against the buyer’s deposit.
  • Factory passported, walked and QC’d before it ships.

Every distributor’s quote floats on those four. Ours doesn’t. That’s why the number holds.

Can I see samples first?

Yes. We air-freight samples from the factory before you commit to an order.

Yes, and you should. We air-freight samples from the factory before you commit to an order, and a sample is the only reliable way to settle the specs that photographs hide - the gauge of a foil tray, the wear layer on a floor, the moisture in a wooden box. If the sample is wrong we go back to the factory, or we find a different one.

How does delivery work?

Your price is delivered to your dock. We book the freight, clear customs, pay the duty and schedule the drop around your receiving hours.

Your price is delivered to your dock, so there is no freight quote arriving later. We book the ocean freight, clear customs, pay the duty and schedule the drop around your receiving hours. If you have a narrow window, a forklift but no dock leveller, or a street a 40-foot container cannot turn into, tell us before we book rather than after.

What's the minimum?

One container, in any mix of products.

The mix is the part people underestimate: you do not need a container of one product, and the loads that work best usually pair something bulky with something heavy so that neither the volume nor the payload goes to waste. Individual products still carry their own factory minimums, and we tell you what those are per line when we price your list.