Before you wire a deposit to any 1688 supplier, spend ten minutes verifying their business license on Qichacha. Most guides on vetting a Chinese factory stop at "look at the photos" or "ask for a video call." Those checks tell you something about presentation. They tell you nothing about who legally holds your money once it leaves your account.
Why you need to verify the legal entity before wiring a deposit
A shop selling on 1688 is not automatically the factory in the photos. A lot of listings are run by trading companies or sourcing agents who front for a network of smaller workshops, and some are shell entities set up specifically to collect deposits and disappear. If a $3,000 deposit goes to an account under a name that does not match any real registered business, you have no paper trail. No legal entity name means no basis to file a complaint with the platform, no basis to pursue a claim with a payment provider, and no basis to take anything to a Chinese court if it ever came to that.
The shop page itself will not tell you this. Years on 1688, review counts, and transaction volume badges are all self-reported by the seller and refreshed by the platform based on activity, not by any government check on who actually owns the business. A registry lookup is the cheapest filter you have before committing real money, and it takes less time than writing the negotiation message. This is the step most first-time buyers skip, and it is one of the most common gaps we cover in common mistakes new buyers make ordering from 1688.
What Qichacha is and why it is worth using
Qichacha (企查查) is a public business registry database that aggregates filings from China's State Administration for Market Regulation, published through the national enterprise credit system (国家企业信用信息公示系统). It is not a leaked database or an insider tool. It is a searchable front end for records every registered company in China is required to file: legal entity name, registered capital, business scope, registration date, and any enforcement actions against it.
The free tier is enough for a basic supplier check. You do not need a paid account to pull the fields that matter for a go/no-go decision.
Tianyancha (天眼查) is the other major option and covers largely the same registry data. The practical difference is in how each surfaces litigation and shareholder network data. Tianyancha tends to visualize ownership chains and related-party links more clearly, which helps if you are trying to trace a shop back to a parent company. Qichacha's risk-flag layout is a bit more direct for a quick pass/fail read. Either one works for the check in this post. Pick one and stick with it so you get used to reading the layout fast.
Getting the legal entity name and registration number from the 1688 page
On the supplier's 1688 shop page, look for the 企业信息 (company information) section, usually accessible from the shop's "about" or credentials tab. This is where the registered legal entity name lives, and it is very often different from the storefront name you see in search results. A shop trading as "Guangzhou XY Toys Factory" might be legally registered under a completely different name with three other people's names attached as shareholders.
Alongside the legal name, look for the unified social credit code (统一社会信用代码), an 18-character alphanumeric string. This code is the single most reliable identifier for a lookup because company names can be transliterated inconsistently, but the code is unique and fixed. Screenshot both the legal name and the code before you search. Sellers do update or scrub their company info pages, and having your own record protects you if the listing changes later.
Reading the Qichacha lookup result step by step
Go to qichacha.com and paste in either the legal entity name or the 18-character code. Once you land on the company profile, check these fields against what the seller has told you:
Registration date versus how long they claim to have operated. Registered capital (注册资本) versus the scale of orders they are pitching you on. A supplier quoting container-volume orders with RMB 100,000 in registered capital is a mismatch worth asking about. Business scope (经营范围), which lists what the company is legally permitted to manufacture or trade in.
Then check two specific flag sections: 经营异常名录 (abnormal operation list) and 失信被执行人 (list of persons subject to enforcement for lost credibility, essentially a bad-debt or default record). Either flag present is a real signal, not noise. Last, compare the registered address against the manufacturing region they claim. If they say they run a factory in Dongguan but the registered address is in a different province entirely, ask why.
Red flags that mean you stop right there
A few patterns should end the conversation before you send any money:
Registered capital far below what the order size implies, for example RMB 300,000 (roughly USD 42,000) on a supplier pitching you six-figure USD annual volume. A company registered eight months ago marketing itself as a factory with fifteen years of manufacturing experience. Any abnormal operation flag or enforcement record on file. A registered address that resolves to a residential apartment block or a shared virtual office address rather than an industrial park in Guangdong, Zhejiang, or Fujian. A business scope that has nothing to do with the product category they are selling on 1688, such as a company registered for "general trade" claiming to be an electronics OEM.
Any one of these alone is worth a direct question to the supplier. Two or more together is a reason to walk.
Combine entity verification with other real checks
A clean registry pull tells you the company is real and not currently flagged. It does not tell you their production line is running, their samples match their catalog photos, or their QC process is any good. Treat the Qichacha check as your first filter, not your only one. Pair it with a factory video call and, where the order size justifies it, a third-party inspection before final payment, the kind of process covered in checking product quality before paying a 1688 supplier.
Once a supplier clears both checks, resist the habit of routing everything through them alone. A verified factory that becomes your only source is still a single point of failure if they raise prices, hit capacity limits, or go quiet during peak season. See building a 1688 supply chain that does not depend on one supplier for how to structure that. Verification also puts you in a stronger position at the negotiating table, since a supplier who knows you have checked their registration and can walk away tends to move faster on price. That process is covered in negotiating price with 1688 suppliers.
What Ordinex does to help with supplier verification
Doing this manually once is a ten-minute task. Doing it for eight suppliers across three product categories in the same week is where it gets tedious, and where operators start skipping steps under time pressure. Scout, our private beta sourcing tool, is built to pull supplier information together in one place so this kind of check does not eat your afternoon every time you are evaluating a new factory.
If you are sourcing from 1688 regularly and want fewer manual lookups per supplier, you can request access to the Scout private beta at ordinex.cc.
Frequently asked questions
Does the supplier find out I looked them up? No. Qichacha and Tianyancha are public lookup tools with no notification to the company being searched.
What if the legal entity name does not match the shop name at all? That alone is not disqualifying, many shops trade under a different name than their registered entity. Ask the supplier directly to confirm the relationship and cross-check the address and business scope for consistency.
Can I look up a Hong Kong or Macau registered company this way? No, Qichacha and Tianyancha only cover mainland China registrations. Hong Kong companies are checked separately through the Companies Registry's Cyber Search Centre.
Is Qichacha available in English? The interface is Chinese-only. A browser translation extension handles the page layout fine, but search by the exact Chinese legal name or the 18-character code rather than a translated name, since translated names will not match registry records.
How often should I re-check a supplier I already work with? Once at onboarding is the minimum. If you are placing a large repeat order after a long gap, or if payment terms or bank details suddenly change, run the check again before sending money.