Resources Library
China sourcing, every guide, article, and reference in one place
The full Ériu library, organised by what you're trying to do. Whether you're new to factory-direct sourcing, comparing modular-home models, sizing your landed cost, or vetting a specific category, the relevant guide is below.
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Start here
The three pillar guides
Process
How It Works, the full sourcing process
The four-step pipeline from your brief to factory-vetted, QC-inspected goods landed in Ireland.
Open the guide → StrategyWhy Buy Direct?, the cost argument
Three China sourcing markup layers you currently pay, and how factory-direct removes them.
Open the guide → NetworkOur China Network, Zhengzhou + Shenzhen
Where the team is, how the central-China and Guangdong bases combine, and what each one is best at.
Open the guide → Modular homes (April 2026 regulation wave)
Everything on Irish modular homes
The new Exempted Development Regulations changed the auxiliary-dwelling market overnight. These guides cover models, layouts, compliance, and cost.
Models
Modular home models, overview
Compare 20ft, 30ft, 40ft and 20FT700 across dimensions, container loading, internal area and best use.
Open the guide → Floor PlansFloor plans across all four models
Standard 1-bed, 2-bed and 3-bed layouts plus shell options.
Open the guide → Use CaseBack-garden homes in Ireland
How the new exemption changes what is possible in a typical Irish back garden.
Open the guide → Process & cost
Sizing the project and verifying the factory
Compliance & regulation
Irish building regs and the planning exemption
Building Regs
Irish building regulations for modular homes
TGD Parts A to M as applied to expandable container homes for Irish supply.
Open the guide → PlanningModular auxiliary dwellings in Ireland
The 21 April 2026 Exempted Development Regulations and what they mean for back-garden dwellings.
Open the guide → By product category
Category-specific sourcing intel
Each category page covers the dominant Chinese cluster, lead times, MOQ ranges, compliance refs, and Irish landed-cost positioning.
- Electronics & Technology Shenzhen is the electronics manufacturing capital of the world. Huaqiangbei, the world's largest electronics market, covering over 100,000 sq metres, is where every major global brand sources components, accessories, and finished goods. Ériu Sourcing operates a permanent base in Shenzhen with direct factory access across consumer electronics, IT hardware, cables, and smart devices.
- Furniture & Furnishings Foshan in Guangdong Province is the world's largest furniture manufacturing cluster, producing an estimated 75% of China's furniture output and anchoring the largest furniture trading hub on earth. Every major furniture style, residential, commercial, hospitality, outdoor, is produced here at scale. Ériu Sourcing operates from Shenzhen, about 45 minutes from Foshan by high-speed rail, with direct factory relationships built over 18 years.
- Construction & Building Materials China is the world's dominant producer of building materials, from aluminium extrusions and ceramic tiles to sanitaryware and insulated panels. Ireland and the UK import billions in construction materials annually from Chinese manufacturers, typically through several layers of European intermediary. Ériu Sourcing removes those layers entirely, with CE compliance verified at source before shipment.
- Hospitality Fit-Out Ireland's hospitality sector, hotels, restaurants, pubs, and serviced apartments, imports enormous volumes of furniture, lighting, ceramics, and tableware, overwhelmingly sourced through European intermediaries who buy from China and add 60–120% margin. Ériu Sourcing removes that intermediary entirely: hotel bedroom packages, restaurant seating, bar counters, and commercial lighting sourced directly from Foshan and Zhongshan factories at the same prices five-star hotel chains pay their direct suppliers.
- Pet Supplies & Accessories Guangzhou and Zhongshan in Guangdong Province produce the majority of the world's pet accessories. Every major global pet retail brand, including brands sold in Irish pet chains, sources from this cluster. The same factories supply Pets at Home, PetSmart, and Zooplus at trade prices that, by the time they reach Irish retailers, carry three layers of distributor margin. Ériu Sourcing provides direct access to the same factories.
- Modular Buildings & Sandwich Panels Chinese manufacturers produce the majority of the world's steel-frame modular buildings and insulated sandwich panels, supplying construction projects across Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. Ireland imports significant volumes of modular structures and insulated panels, typically through UK or European intermediaries at substantial markup. Ériu Sourcing sources directly from CE-certified Chinese manufacturers with full structural documentation provided.
- Machinery Inland China is the production base for the world's heavy machinery, concrete pumps and cranes out of Changsha, jaw and cone crushers out of Zhengzhou, agricultural tractors out of Luoyang, crawler excavators and earthmoving out of Xuzhou, forklifts and warehouse equipment out of Hefei. Each cluster comprises dozens of manufacturers, Ériu Sourcing evaluates the right factory for each buyer brief on capability, lead time, MOQ, and price, rather than pushing a single brand. Our Zhengzhou base sits at the geographic centre of this belt, with every major cluster within four hours by high-speed rail.
- Commercial Inflatables Henan Province, particularly the Zhengzhou and Xinxiang corridor, is China's dominant cluster for commercial inflatables. Bounce houses, inflatable obstacle courses, commercial water-park installations, advertising inflatables, and inflatable event domes are produced here at world-export scale. Ériu Sourcing operates from Zhengzhou with direct factory access for Irish event-hire businesses, holiday-park operators, water-park developers, and outdoor leisure businesses sourcing commercial-grade inflatable equipment.
- Industrial Cutting Tools Henan Province produces approximately 80% of China's lab-grown diamond output, with Zhecheng County and Xuchang City sitting at the centre of a 100-billion-yuan superhard-materials industrial cluster. The cluster has integrated forward from raw diamond synthesis into industrial cutting tools, saw blades, core drilling bits, CBN inserts, segmented grinding discs, and diamond wire, supplying machine shops, stone fabricators, and construction contractors globally. Ériu Sourcing accesses the cluster direct for Irish and UK trade buyers seeking quality-value B2B cutting tooling.
- EV Chargers & Components China produces over 70% of the world's EV chargers, AC wallboxes, portable units, DC fast chargers, and the power modules and connectors inside them, and exports them to charge-point operators and installers across Europe. Chinese hardware typically lands 30–50% below equivalent Western-branded units while supporting OCPP, smart billing, and EU-grade certification. From our base inside Zhengzhou's new-energy-vehicle ecosystem, Ériu Sourcing connects Irish, UK, and European installers and networks directly to that supply, with factory vetting, pre-shipment QC, and logistics built in.
- Glamping Pods & Cabins Glamping in Europe is now a billion-euro sector, and cabins and pods account for roughly half of all booked accommodation. Rising construction costs, planning constraints, and demand for "Instagrammable" stays are pushing campsite and land owners towards faster, more flexible ways to add high-value units. Ériu Sourcing sits in Zhengzhou, at the heart of China's container-house and modular-building ecosystem, giving you direct access to serious prefab manufacturers, plus on-the-ground quality control and logistics for the whole of Europe.
- Building Materials & Production Systems Modular and offsite construction in Europe runs on high-performance materials and the machines that make them: sandwich panels, insulated boards, roofing and cladding systems, precast wall-panel and floor-slab lines, block and paver machines, and the refractory products that line kilns and furnaces. Cost pressure and tighter energy and fire standards are pushing developers and manufacturers towards proven Chinese factories, without giving up quality or documentation. From Zhengzhou, in the middle of Henan's panel, precast and refractory clusters, Ériu Sourcing connects European buyers directly to export-grade factories and bundles sourcing, QC, logistics and documentation into one service.
- Logistics & Warehouse Equipment Modern logistics runs on engineered hardware, pallet racking, conveyors, sortation and dock equipment, not just cheap floor space. China is now a major global manufacturer and exporter of warehouse racking, storage systems and conveyor/sortation lines, with deep industrial clusters and integrated steel, motor and controls supply chains. From Zhengzhou, one of China's national rail-air logistics hubs, Ériu Sourcing connects European 3PLs, e-commerce warehouses and industrial operators directly to proven equipment manufacturers, wrapping sourcing, QC and logistics into one service.
- Construction Machinery China is now a central player in the global construction machinery market. Between January and August 2024 alone, Chinese OEMs sold roughly 131,550 excavators, with around half of those units exported, a scale that pulls compact and mid-sized machinery onto European radars. From Zhengzhou and the wider Henan industrial base, Ériu Sourcing helps European contractors and rental fleets access cost-effective machines while handling the parts that actually decide success: CE marking, Stage V emissions and hydraulic quality.
- Industrial & Workshop Equipment China is now a core supplier of the equipment small and mid-sized manufacturers run every day, metal-forming and CNC cutting machines, dust extraction and filtration, and complete grain and food processing lines. Henan, and the Zhengzhou–Kaifeng–Xingyang corridor in particular, is a genuine industrial-machinery cluster with decades of export history. From that base, Ériu Sourcing helps European SMEs and fabricators buy directly from proven factories, with technical filtering, factory audits, QC and logistics handled on the ground, and compliance built into the process rather than bolted on at the end.
Latest from the blog
Recent articles
The Housing Squeeze
Your adult child can't move out. Your back garden might be the answer.
41% of Irish 18–34s still live with parents. A self-contained back-garden home, from €25,000, under the draft 2026 rules, is becoming the third option.
Read the article → The Income AngleThe quiet way Irish homeowners are turning a back garden into €14,000 a year
Up to €14,000 a year tax-free under the Rent-a-Room scheme, from a self-contained home on ground you already own. The honest yield maths and the caveats.
Read the article → The Self-Build AlternativeA real home, built to last 30 years, for a fraction of an Irish build
Not a garden room, the actual home on your own site. Irish Building Regs, A2 BER, a 30-year warranty, in 14–18 weeks for a fraction of a conventional build.
Read the article → RightsizingDownsizing in Ireland doesn't have to mean leaving
Rightsize without giving up the family home or the area, a single-storey, level-access garden home from €25,000, built under the draft 2026 rules.
Read the article → Trade EventsCanton Fair 2026: a guide for Irish buyers attending for the first time
Attending the Canton Fair 2026? What Irish buyers need to know, the three phases and dates, how to prepare, evaluate suppliers, and vet them afterwards.
Read the article → Category Deep DiveSourcing furniture from Foshan: a complete guide for Irish buyers
Foshan is the world's largest furniture hub. How Irish buyers source Foshan factories direct, by district, with honest pricing, fire standards and lead times.
Read the article → Quick answers
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