China sourcing — questions Irish and UK buyers ask most

A China sourcing agent acts as your on-the-ground representative in China — identifying factories rather than trading companies, vetting suppliers physically, negotiating direct factory-gate pricing, conducting pre-shipment quality control, and coordinating freight. Ériu Sourcing operates from Zhengzhou (Henan, central China) and Shenzhen (Guangdong, south China) with 18 years of established factory relationships across construction, modular building, machinery, furniture and consumer goods.

Most suppliers on Alibaba are trading companies, not factories — they add 20–40% margin while presenting themselves as manufacturers. There is no physical verification, no pre-shipment inspection, and no CE compliance check possible through Alibaba alone. Ériu provides direct factory access with physical on-site visits, factory-gate price negotiation, and independent pre-shipment QC before a container is sealed. The price difference flows through to Irish landed cost as a 35–60% saving on equivalent product.

Noel Murphy, founder, moved to Zhengzhou in 2008 and has operated continuously from there since. The wider Ériu team is 50+ people across Zhengzhou (Henan) and Shenzhen (Guangdong), built on the operational base of PFC Express — Noel's previous logistics business which scaled to €30M+ annual revenue and which provides the warehouse, QC, and freight infrastructure that Ériu sourcing clients access today.

Central China — Henan, Hubei, Hunan and the surrounding provinces — is the production heartland for the categories Irish and UK buyers import in serious volume: modular homes (Zhengzhou / Xinxiang), construction materials including aluminium profiles and fasteners, machinery (Changsha concrete equipment, Zhengzhou crushing equipment, Luoyang agricultural machinery), refractory products (Xinmi), and commercial inflatables. Shenzhen and Guangdong dominate consumer electronics and premium furniture — Ériu sources from those clusters too, but central China is where the structural cost advantage and Noel's 18-year ground knowledge concentrate.

Pre-shipment QC is a physical inspection of finished goods at the factory before the shipping container is sealed. The inspection checks product specifications against your approved sample, verifies quantities, reviews packaging, and tests product function where applicable. If goods fail inspection, they stay in China at the factory's cost — you do not pay freight on rejected goods. This eliminates the risk of discovering quality problems at Dublin Port.

Yes. CE compliance is verified at source — at the factory in China — before any goods leave the country. We check certification documentation, test reports, and product specifications against EU and Irish standards. For construction materials, electronics, and apparel, full compliance documentation is provided with every order. The "CE" mark on Chinese product is not always the EU CE mark; we verify the documentation chain and reject China Export-marked goods being presented as EU CE-compliant.

AQL (Acceptable Quality Limit) is the internationally used statistical standard for quality sampling. For most consumer goods imported into Ireland, AQL 2.5 for Major defects and AQL 4.0 for Minor defects is standard. Higher-value products or safety-critical components should use AQL 1.0 for Major defects. The inspection sample size scales with order quantity; Ériu advises the appropriate AQL based on your product category as part of the QC scope.

If a pre-shipment inspection finds defects above the agreed AQL threshold, the order is held at the factory and not loaded. Ériu negotiates rework or replacement with the factory at no cost to you. Rework typically adds three to ten days to lead time depending on the defect scope. You only pay for goods that pass QC and load — never for failed-inspection units.

Under the Government's draft Exempted Development Regulations brought to Cabinet on 21 April 2026, a detached auxiliary habitable dwelling of 32–45 square metres can be built in the back garden of a principal house without full planning permission, provided it is connected to the principal house's services and meets the exemption conditions. Planning exemption is not the same as building-regulations exemption — every structure must still meet Irish Building Regs (TGD Parts A to M), and a BER assessment is required.

The 20ft Expandable (~34 m² internal) sits inside the 32–45 m² band drafted in the April 2026 exemption. The 30ft (~52 m²) and 40ft (~70 m²) models exceed the upper bound and so require full planning permission. The 20FT700 (~25 m²) sits below the lower bound. See the dedicated 20ft Expandable spec sheet for the typical Irish exemption use case.

Typical end-to-end timeline for an Ériu expandable container home: two weeks factory production, four to five weeks sea freight from China to Dublin, one week port-to-site transit and on-site expansion. Total: approximately seven to eight weeks from production start. Foundation, services, and finishes are usually delivered in parallel by your Irish build team.

A 20ft Expandable from the Henan factory base, fully specified for Irish building-regs compliance (PIR-upgraded panel walls, double-glazed openings, internal partitioning to a standard 1-bed layout), is typically €18,000–€26,000 FOB factory. Sea freight from China to Dublin (two units per 40HQ container) adds approximately €1,500 per unit. Irish customs duty, 23% VAT and inland delivery add a further 35–40% to the FOB price. A complete delivered-to-site Irish landed cost is typically €32,000–€42,000 per unit, exclusive of site groundworks, services connection, and internal fit-out.