A factory wires back three days after you've already sent the deposit: raw material cost went up, new unit price is 9.15 USD instead of the 8.20 USD you both agreed on for 500 kids' backpacks. This is what to do when a 1688 supplier raises price after deposit, not the general negotiation playbook you read before you ever placed the order. You're past that stage. The deposit is gone, the clock on your selling season is running, and you need a decision, not a lecture on rapport-building.
Why 1688 factories re-quote after you've already closed the order
Four things drive this, and only one of them is actually your problem to solve with a calculator instead of an argument.
Raw material costs move. Fabric, resin, aluminum, corrugated packaging, all of it tracks commodity prices that shift week to week. A factory quoting you in March on cotton-blend fabric can get hit with a real cost jump by the time your PI is signed in April. That's not a scam, that's input volatility they're passing through.
Seasonal demand also reshuffles priority. In the run-up to Lunar New Year, 11.11, or 618, factories fill their lines with whoever pays the most per unit. Your order, quoted in the slow season, suddenly looks like the low-margin job on the floor. Some factories will quietly try to push your price up to match what a bigger buyer just offered, using "cost increase" as the cover story.
A lot of this also traces back to how the order got closed in the first place. If you locked price and quantity over WeChat chat without pinning down material grade, size breakdown, or MOQ per size, the factory has room to claim "misunderstanding" and requote once the deposit clears. Loose specs are an invitation.
And then there's the outright pricing trick: quote artificially low to win the deposit against a competing factory, then raise price once you're committed and switching costs money. This is the one worth naming plainly, because it's common enough on 1688 that you should assume it's possible until proven otherwise.
Signs it's a legitimate reason or a pressure tactic
Before you respond to the factory at all, run the re-quote through four checks.
Check the math against the market. If they're claiming a 12 percent price jump, does that match actual material price movement on 1688 or in trade press for that category over the same window? A real cotton or PET resin spike leaves a paper trail. An invented one doesn't.
Ask for proof, not a statement. A factory with a legitimate cost increase can usually produce something: a supplier price notice, an updated material quote, even a screenshot from their own upstream vendor. If all you get is "materials go up, sorry," treat that as a weak signal.
Find out if it's everyone or just you. Ask directly, even if you expect a dodge: "Are you applying this new price to all customers or just this order?" A factory raising price across the board because of a real cost shock will usually admit it. One that only re-quotes the order that just funded their deposit is telling you something else.
Timing matters more than most buyers give it credit for. A re-quote that lands within 48 hours of the deposit clearing is a red flag almost by default, since material costs don't usually spike that fast. A re-quote three weeks later, after a documented market move, is a different conversation entirely.
What to do right away when you get the re-quote
Don't type a reply yet. Do this first.
Pull every message, the original quoted price, and the PI (proforma invoice) into one place before you respond to anything. If this turns into a dispute later, you want a clean paper trail, not a scramble through chat history.
Line up the new price against the confirmed order and get the exact delta in dollars, not a gut feeling. On the backpack example, 8.20 to 9.15 USD is a 0.95 USD jump per unit, or 475 USD across 500 units. That number is what you're actually negotiating, not the abstract idea of "they raised the price."
Then rerun your landed cost and margin at the new number before you decide anything. A 11.6 percent unit cost increase might still leave you profitable, or it might wipe out the whole margin depending on your sell price and freight. If you haven't already broken down your full landed cost stack, our guide on calculating true landed cost for 1688 imports walks through exactly what to include beyond FOB price, so you know your real breakeven before you respond to the factory.
How to negotiate when the factory raised price after deposit
You have more leverage than it feels like in the moment, because the factory already has your deposit and doesn't want to refund it either.
Start by asking to honor the original price on the units already covered by deposit, with the new price applying only to any additional quantity or your next reorder. This is usually the easiest ask for a factory to say yes to, since it protects the order they've already committed floor time to.
If they push back, negotiate splitting the delta. On the 475 USD gap, offering to absorb half (roughly 237 USD, or about 0.47 USD per unit) often closes the conversation faster than holding at zero. Full refusal sometimes works if your leverage is strong, but it also stalls production while you argue over a few hundred dollars.
You can also trade terms instead of cash. Offering to pay the balance earlier than agreed, or committing verbally to a bigger next order, gives the factory something to justify eating the increase without losing face internally. For the mechanics of structuring these asks, our piece on negotiating price cuts with 1688 suppliers covers phrasing and sequencing that applies here too, even though you're defending a price rather than cutting one.
If the factory is simply refusing to honor a price you have in writing, on a confirmed PI, that's when you escalate through the platform's dispute or complaint channel rather than keep negotiating by chat. 1688 does take documented breach of a confirmed order seriously, but only if you have the paper trail from step one.
When to accept the new price, when to walk away
Set your threshold before emotion sets it for you. If the new price still leaves you at or above your target margin, closer to 15 percent net for most operators, take it and move on. Arguing over a few percentage points that don't change your business isn't worth the relationship damage or the delay.
If it does cut into margin meaningfully, weigh the cost of switching factories mid-order against just eating the increase. A new factory means new sampling time, possibly a lost deposit on this one, and a real chance of missing your selling window if this is inventory for a seasonal push. Sometimes a 5 percent margin hit is cheaper than three weeks of delay.
One pattern is a hard stop regardless of margin math: a factory that re-quotes more than once on the same order. That's not volatility, that's a negotiating habit, and it will repeat on every future order with them.
If you do decide to walk, don't let this be the first time you're scrambling for a backup supplier. Our guide on building a 1688 supply chain that doesn't depend on one factory is worth reading before you're in a time crunch, not during one.
How to prevent this on your next order
Close every order in writing, with full specs (material, size breakdown, MOQ per variant), locked unit price, quantity, and, critically, a stated validity period for the quote. "This price is valid for 7 days" written into the PI removes the ambiguity that lets a factory requote later and call it a misunderstanding.
Ask directly how long a quote holds before you send any deposit. Don't assume a price is fixed indefinitely just because it's in a chat message. Factories quote against current material cost, not against your timeline.
Confirming quality and specs before you pay the balance also cuts off a common excuse for mid-order renegotiation. If a factory can claim your spec was unclear, they have room to push price. Our guide on checking 1688 product quality before final payment covers what to verify and when.
If you're newer to sourcing on 1688, it's worth reading through common mistakes first-time 1688 buyers make so this specific situation doesn't repeat itself on your third or fourth order.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a 1688 supplier legally raise the price after I've already paid a deposit? Nothing stops them from asking. Whether they can force it depends on what you actually confirmed. A verbal chat agreement gives them room. A signed PI with locked unit price and quantity gives you grounds to push back, including through the platform's dispute process if they refuse to honor it.
What size price increase should I just accept versus fight? There's no universal number, but as a rule of thumb, anything under 3 to 5 percent usually costs more in time and relationship friction to fight than it saves. Above that, run your margin math from the "what to do right away" section before deciding.
Do I need this level of documentation for small orders too? Yes. The dollar amount at risk is smaller, but the pattern of factories testing which buyers push back doesn't care about order size. A factory that gets away with a re-quote on a 2,000 USD order will try it again on your 20,000 USD order.
What if the factory just refuses to honor the original quote at all? Escalate through 1688's dispute channel with your saved messages and PI as evidence, and start sourcing a backup in parallel rather than waiting on the outcome. Don't let one factory's refusal freeze your production timeline.
We're building Scout and Orders inside Ordinex specifically so this kind of price dispute has a paper trail by default, quotes, confirmations, and margin math in one place instead of scattered across chat threads. Both are in private beta at ordinex.cc if you want early access.