Hotel Amenities Supplier Audit Checklist: 20 Questions Before You Commit
ByHcProduct Manager
A deposit is a vote of trust. This checklist is how you earn the right to cast it: twenty questions, grouped into four areas, that separate working factories from trading offices and half-finished workshops. Most can be answered in one video call; the ones that cannot are your answer.
Buyers usually qualify a hotel amenities supplier by price and by photo. Both are easy to fake. What is much harder to fake is a live answer to a specific question about your own order — how many pairs per day, who signs the inspection report, what happens when a carton fails AQL. This checklist gives you those questions in the order that matters, so the weak factory disqualifies itself before you spend a cent on samples.
1. Company and compliance — who are you actually buying from
The first five questions establish that the entity on your proforma invoice exists, is licensed to export, and actually owns production. This is where ghost factories and pure trading offices reveal themselves.
| # | Question | What good evidence looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | May I see your business licence and export record? | Licence photo with the factory name matching the bank account on the PI |
| 2 | Are you a factory or a trading company? Who runs the lines? | Workshop video on request, not a brochure; a trader will say so if asked directly twice |
| 3 | How long has the team produced hotel amenities specifically? | Years in hotel supplies, not general plastics; ask who worked on comparable hotel programs |
| 4 | Which markets do you currently export to, and any reference hotels? | A few recent programs by region; vague answers about 'many countries' are a soft flag |
| 5 | What is your registered capital and average monthly output? | Two numbers that should be consistent with the workshop size you are about to see |
2. Production capability — can they hold your volume and deadline
Capability questions are about arithmetic, not adjectives. You want daily output per line, the real bottleneck, and what happens to your order when a bigger client ships the same week.
| # | Question | What good evidence looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | What is your daily output for the item I am ordering — slippers, kits, bottles? | A number per line per shift, and a willingness to name the shift pattern |
| 7 | Which processes are in-house and which are outsourced? | Sewing, moulding, filling and packing named one by one; outsourced steps must still be inspectable |
| 8 | What is your current lead time realistically, including CNY season? | A range with a stated cutoff date before Chinese New Year, not a flat '15 days' |
| 9 | What happens to my schedule if an urgent order lands the same week? | Priority rules in writing; evasiveness here predicts every future delay |
| 10 | Show me the packing line and a packed carton for a similar order. | Live photos or video of carton dimensions, inner boxes and desiccant, not stock renders |
3. Quality system — what is checked, by whom, on whose authority
A quality system is not a certificate on the wall. It is four or five routines someone actually performs: incoming material checks, in-line inspection, pre-shipment AQL sampling, and a written record with a name attached.
| # | Question | What good evidence looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | What incoming checks do you run on raw materials? | Fabric GSM spot checks, bottle wall thickness, filling volume sampling — named, with frequency |
| 12 | Is there in-line inspection, and who signs the record? | A named QC per line; ask to see one filled record with today's date |
| 13 | Will you provide a pre-shipment AQL report for my order? | Sample size and acceptance numbers per AQL 2.5/4.0, with photos of the sampled cartons |
| 14 | Which third-party tests can you arrange, and who pays? | BPA-free, azo-free, antimicrobial tests via SGS/Intertek/TUV with the report in your name |
| 15 | What is your rework and rejection process when a lot fails? | The failed lot is segregated, re-inspected at 100% or scrapped; a repair-in-secret story is a red flag |
4. Communication and documentation — how the order will actually run
Most sourcing disasters are communication failures that were visible before the deposit. These five questions measure whether the factory writes things down.
| # | Question | What good evidence looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | Who is my single point of contact, in which time zone, on which channel? | One named person on WhatsApp or email with a stated reply window |
| 17 | Will I receive a PI that states specs, packaging, Incoterm and payment terms? | A sample PI with item codes, carton data and Incoterm filled in, not a price screenshot |
| 18 | How are pre-production and shipping samples handled? | Golden sample sealed in two copies, one retained at the factory against your order number |
| 19 | Can I get production photos at fixed milestones? | Agreed photo points: materials in, lines running, packing, container loading |
| 20 | What is your process when I claim a quality problem after arrival? | A claim window in days, evidence required, and a remedy path — credit, remake or refund |
How to run the audit remotely in one video call
Nineteen of the twenty questions can be covered in a single structured video call of sixty to ninety minutes. The trick is sequence: ask for a walking tour first, questions second. A factory that steers the camera away from the packing area or the inspection table has answered three questions without speaking.
- Minutes 0-15: walking tour — raw material area, each production line, inspection table, packing line, finished-goods warehouse.
- Minutes 15-40: capability questions (6-10) with the camera held on the relevant line while they answer.
- Minutes 40-60: quality system (11-15); ask them to open the inspection record book on camera.
- Minutes 60-90: documents — licence, sample PI, one recent AQL report with the client name covered.
Follow the call with everything in writing: one email summarising all twenty answers, and a request to correct anything inaccurate. The correction — or its absence — is the final data point of the audit.
Red flags that should end the conversation
- Bank account on the PI belongs to a personal name or a different company than the licence.
- Refuses a live workshop video but offers edited footage or a third-party showroom.
- Promises any lead time, any specification and any certification without checking with the floor.
- Cannot name a single QC procedure or produce one signed inspection record.
- Quotes far below the market band without explaining the cost-down — the saving usually comes out of the GSM, the fill volume or the inspection you never see.
Run this audit once per candidate, keep the written record, and shortlist two factories. The pair that survives becomes your comparison set for pricing and for the sample round described next. If you are still choosing, our guide to selecting a hotel amenities supplier in China covers the strategic side, and we are happy to be audited with exactly these twenty questions — send them via WhatsApp.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I audit a Chinese factory remotely, or must I visit?
Remote audits work for first qualification: a structured video call covers 19 of the 20 checklist questions. Visit in person before very large programs, mould investment, or when a remote audit raises doubts the factory cannot clear.
How long does a supplier audit take?
One video call of 60-90 minutes plus two or three days of document exchange. The written summary and correction round adds another day, so plan roughly a week per candidate.
What is the single most important audit question?
Question 12 — who signs the in-line inspection record. A named QC with a filled, dated record book separates working quality systems from certificate walls faster than any other answer.
Related products
The ranges this guide refers to — specifications, MOQ and packaging on each page.
Need this specification quoted for your property?
Send your room count, star rating and target unit price. We reply with a costed specification, not a catalogue page — usually within 12 hours.
Continue reading
Sourcing from China
How to Choose a Hotel Amenities Supplier in China: A 10-Point Buyer's Checklist
A 10-point framework for evaluating Chinese hotel amenities suppliers: factory checks, samples, specification control, documents and red flags.
Sourcing from China
How to Read an AQL Inspection Report for Hotel Supplies
AQL 2.5 and 4.0 explained for hotel amenity buyers: sample sizes, critical, major and minor defects, and how to judge pass or fail on an inspection report.
More buying guides