A factory price is a specific kind of number. It is not a lower retail price — it is a different transaction entirely, with its own assumptions. Read it wrong and you will conclude you can buy a ¥289 smartwatch for ¥289, which you cannot.
Here is what a factory price assumes.
Assumption 1: There is a minimum order
Factory pricing is batch pricing. ¥289 per unit might assume 50 units, or 500. Below that, either the price rises or the factory is not interested.
This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it is why we state it on every product page. If you want one unit:
- The factory route is closed to you at that number
- The realistic path is a retail platform, and you pay retail
- The 83% average markup is still useful context — it tells you how much of your money is brand rather than product — but it is not a shopping channel
Assumption 2: It is in RMB, at the factory gate
Two conversions people incorrectly apply:
Currency. ¥289 is not $289. We show a reference conversion at ¥7.2/$1 so you can compare scale, but a converted factory price is not a Western retail price. They are different things and we label them differently on purpose.
Ex-works vs delivered. A factory-gate price excludes freight, duty and last-mile. A retail price includes all of it. Comparing the two directly overstates the gap. This is part of why the brand premium looks so large: it is not all brand margin, some of it is logistics the brand is absorbing for you.
Assumption 3: You own the risk
At factory pricing, the risk transfer is different:
| Retail | Factory | |
|---|---|---|
| Certification | Handled | Yours to verify |
| Warranty | Included | Usually none |
| Returns | Standard | Negotiated per order |
| Quality QA | Brand’s process | Your inspection |
For a phone stand, none of this matters. For anything mains-powered, applied to skin, or given to a child, it matters a lot.
How to use the number properly
Do:
- Treat it as a floor to negotiate from, not a price you will pay
- Compare within a cluster and category, not across the whole catalogue
- Use the sourcing keywords to find competing factories — one factory’s quote is not the market
Don’t:
- Assume the gap is fully available to you
- Convert it to dollars and call it a Western price
- Buy mains-powered or skin-contact items direct without checking certification
The one-line version
A factory price is a wholesale price with conditions attached. It is genuinely useful for understanding where your money goes, and genuinely misleading if you read it as “the real price” of a single unit.
Browse the full factory price list, each item labelled with its sourcing keywords and source region — the two things you need to act on it.
Every figure here is from the items we track: 200 products across 16 categories, average brand markup 83%, sourced from original-market research. Where we have not pulled a real Western retail price, the row says so rather than estimating.