How the Agreement Works
Every project starts with a short written agreement between you and TinySourcing Trading Ltd. It covers the scope of services, the applicable fee tier, payment milestones, confidentiality in both directions, ownership of supplier relationships, and the dispute process. You sign it before any money moves — you always know the terms before you commit.
The agreement is deliberately short. These Terms of Service supply the general framework; the agreement records only what is specific to your project — products, quantities, fee tier, milestones and deadlines. Where the two differ, the agreement prevails.
The Key Clauses, In Plain Language
- Scope: exactly which of the ten services we perform for this project, with deliverables and target dates
- Specification & golden sample: your approved sample is sealed, signed and dated; production is checked against it, not against anyone's memory
- Fee: one tier rate applied to the order value, charged only on goods that ship
- Milestones: quotation → sample approval → deposit → production → inspection → balance → shipment; nothing proceeds without your written approval at each gate
- Confidentiality both ways: your designs and product ideas stay yours; our commercial terms stay ours — indefinitely, not just during the project
- No kickbacks: our only income from the project is the sourcing fee; supplier benefits are disclosed and declined or credited to you
- Evidence trail: quotations, inspections, payments and decisions are documented as the project runs, not reconstructed afterwards
- Compliance boundary: we coordinate and verify documentation; final market compliance is the buyer's responsibility, and we flag risks in writing before you pay
What Stays Yours
- Supplier relationships: factory contacts, quotations and order history are handed over with your project file at any time, on request — you are never locked in
- Molds and tooling: anything you pay for is yours; we require the supplier to tag it as your property and release it to you or your next agent on demand
- Designs and artwork: your intellectual property, used by us only to run your project
- Documents: invoices, QC reports, shipping papers — copies live in your project file, accessible even after the project closes
What we don't ask for: no exclusivity, no minimum commitment, no right to your customer lists. You may run other agents in parallel; competition keeps us honest.
Fees & Milestones
The agreement states the fee tier that applies to your project — currently 8% under $5,000 falling to 3% above $100,000 per order, per the published pricing — and lists the payment milestones in order:
- Sample costs — at supplier terms, receipts provided, often creditable to the first order
- Production deposit — typically 30% to the supplier, only after you approve the order
- Balance to the supplier — only after the pre-shipment inspection report is approved by you
- Sourcing fee — itemised, on shipped value, invoiced with the shipment documents
We never hold your funds outside the milestones above, and every payment is matched to an invoice and a receipt. Cancellations and refunds follow the Refund Policy.
The Full Template
The complete agreement template (Chinese and English) is sent together with your first project proposal, so you can read every clause — or have your lawyer read it — before you commit. If any clause is unclear, ask us before signing: hello@tinysourcing.com. We answer terms questions before you commit, not after.
Terms You Can Read in Five Minutes
Your project, your suppliers, your documents — with everything else written down.