Take everything we track and average it out, and you get one number: 83%.
That is the gap between what an item sells for under a brand and what the factory charges for it. Across 200 items in 16 categories, the range runs from 60% on a large air fryer to 95% on a smartwatch out of Huaqiangbei.
The number is real, and it is also easy to misread. Here is what it does and does not mean.
Where the number comes from
Both figures are in RMB, both are from the Chinese market. The “brand price” is what the item sells for under a brand name on a Chinese retail platform. The “factory price” is the factory-gate price.
Same market, same currency. That is the entire reason the gap is trustworthy — there is no exchange rate, no import duty, no shipping inflating either side.
This is not a Western retail price. It does not tell you what the item costs on Amazon. If you want that, we only list it when we have pulled it from a live listing, and it is labelled separately. A Chinese brand price converted into dollars is not a US price, and we will not pretend it is.
Trap 1: The average hides the spread
83% sounds like a rule. It is not.
| Item | Brand price | Factory price | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Huaqiangbei Premium Smartwatch | ¥6299 | ¥289 | 95% |
| 5L Large-Capacity Air Fryer | ¥399 | ¥159 | 60% |
| Quiet High-Speed Blender | ¥1299 | ¥329 | 75% |
A 60% gap and a 95% gap are different situations. The air fryer is a commodity — many factories make it, the brand adds less. The smartwatch is a category where one specific look carries a huge premium and the internals are commoditised.
If you are deciding what to buy at the factory price, sort by category, not by the global average. The categories split cleanly:
- Lowest markups: Kitchen Gadgets (79%), Home & Living (81%)
- Highest markups: Personal Care (87%), Beauty Tools (85%)
Kitchen tools are closer to commodities. Beauty devices carry the premium because the category sells on brand trust rather than specification.
Trap 2: A big gap is not automatically a good buy
A 90% gap on an IPL hair removal device (¥1999 → ¥199) looks fantastic. But you are not buying a percentage — you are buying a device.
Ask what the brand price actually includes:
- Certification and safety testing — relevant for anything mains-powered or applied to skin
- After-sales and warranty — the factory price usually comes with none
- Quality consistency — a brand that ships a million units has a returns process; a single factory order does not
The gap is real. Whether it is available to you depends on whether you can absorb those three things. For a phone case, sure. For a device you plug into the wall, think harder.
Trap 3: Factory price ≠ what you’ll pay
Most factory pricing assumes a minimum order quantity. ¥289 is the per-unit price at a batch size, not for one unit shipped to your door.
We state this on every product page because it is the single most common misunderstanding. If you want one unit, the realistic path is a retail platform — and then you are paying retail, brand or not.
How to actually use the number
- Compare within a category. The average across all 16 categories is a headline, not a shopping rule.
- Treat the gap as headroom, not savings. It is the space between factory and brand. How much of it you capture depends on volume and risk tolerance.
- Read the source region. A 90% gap on something from Shenzhen’s electronics cluster is a different proposition from a 90% gap on something from Yiwu’s general goods cluster. The first means genuine component cost; the second often means the brand simply added more.
Browse the full markup table on the Factory Prices page, or go straight to the industrial clusters if you want to start from where rather than what.