How to Find the Best Toy Manufacturers in China?

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

The global toy market is a whopping $80 billion industry. Approximately 85 percent of U.S. toys are manufactured and imported from China. Here is the question: How to Find the Best Toy Manufacturers in China?

In this article, I will share about the China toy factories’ distribution. Introduce to you the leading Chinese toy wholesale markets and how to find reliable toy manufacturers in China.

In the end, you will learn how to find the right Chinese toy factories and ensure the toy quality. Whether you selling on Amazon, running the Shopify dropshipping store, or the traditional retail and wholesale business. I believe this article can help you.

What Types of Toys are Suitable for Import from China?

To do the toy product research is important before navigating the China toy wholesale markets. Below we are listing the most popular toys you can buy from China.

As regards the import of toys from China, it is crucial to concentrate on items of high demand, items with a successful record in safety and quality and, preferably, with a profitable margin.

1. Educational Toys: Toys that encourage learning and development, such as STEM toys (science, technology, engineering, and math), toys for language learning, puzzles, and blocks for building. Such toys are an option for parents who believe in the integration of educational aspects in play.

2. Electronic Toys: Having control cars in the toy list, as well as drones, electronic pets, and educational tablets. Such products are attracted by the same features that are new and interesting to the marketplace that is tech-savvy.

3. Plush Toys: Customized stuffed animals in different shapes represent popular culture, animals, and fantasy worlds. They cater to a wide audience and are often hooked to pop culture and media.

4. Action Figures and Dolls: Movie characters, superheroes, and cartoons of popular culture. These kinds of toys are always very popular, especially when corresponding with the newest movie, and or in-progress TV shows.

5. Outdoor and Sports Toys: Providing scooters, skateboards, balls, and items for children’s sports like fighting games. These line up with the parents and children of the two types, the outdoor playground and the physical activity.

6. Board Games and Card Games: As the board game market bounces back from the hibernation period for both children and adults, game developers that reinvigorate the experience or those that cater to the minority players’ interests can succeed.

7. Crafts and DIY Kits: Such activities as drawing, weaving, or constructing various kits let kids come up with something creative of their own. Such toys are helpful due to their educational value. It is fun to complete something and it makes people happy.

8. Eco-friendly and Sustainable Toys: As people become more aware of their responsibility towards preserving the environment, the trend has seen a sharp increase in the number of “green toys” made from wood, bamboo, or recycled plastics.

Note: When importing toys from China, the safety of the products must necessarily be checked and they should comply with the safety norms and regulations of the importing country, at all times.

Over in the US, the toys have to be moderated by CPSC, and harmful substances such as lead, phthalates, and ASTM F963 toy safety standards are considered.

Things like UTL regulation appear in the EU, Canada, and most other markets too. So recommended that it should be done in cooperation with known producers and make quality of products inspections before they deliver them to shops.

Where to Find Toy Manufacturers in China?

How to buy toys in bulk from China? Where are the Chinese toy industry clusters?

Let’s explore the Chinese toy distribution centers for the most popular toy categories.

1. Buy plastic toys in Chenghai, Shantou City

Chenghai, Shantou City, is located in the south of China, Guangdong province.

Here you can find the well-established wholesale toy supply chain. It includes the raw material, toy tooling suppliers, toy manufacturers (main point), toy packaging suppliers, and toy assembling suppliers. A large number of toy manufacturers in China are based in Shantou which means you can deal with many different Chinese toy traders there.

From my experience after sourcing thousands of toys in China, I realize it’s not so easy to find or work directly with the China toy manufacturer in Shantou.

The main reason is that the local toy manufacturers are used to working with sourcing agents like OwlSourcing. Some toy wholesale factories in China used to hide in the open market. They don’t need to engage in international trading directly, and they can save costs to avoid building up a new team serving foreign customers.

Meanwhile, the toy trading company or the sourcing agent is responsible for overseas sales. They act like a “Department of Trade” of the toy factory in China.

I call this a symbiotic relationship of the Shantou toy industry.

Why? Chinese toy manufacturers are accustomed to putting their energy into toy tooling, assembling, new toy designing, and toy manufacturing, and their primary customers are sourcing agents.

I can hardly find the factory name at the gate of a toy factory in Shantou, especially when visiting small to medium-sized toy factories. The local toy trading company staff told me that this is common in Shantou, and that’s why it’s so tricky for overseas buyers to find the China toy manufacturers directly.

98% of the China toy suppliers you sourced on Alibaba are toy trading companies or toy sourcing agents. The toy trading companies work as “Chinese toy manufacturers exporters.”

But if they can provide a reasonable price and service, why not?

Tip: How can you get the best toy price when buying from Chinese toy manufacturers?

You can ask the toy supplier if they have a kind of “Toy Group Buy” to get the best price!

The data shows why the plastic toy vendors in China can provide a very competitive price that they can consolidate the orders from different clients from all over the world!

The toy factories in China are ordering plastic raw materials such as PP (Polypropylene), and ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) from the raw material manufacturers in an enormous volume to get a bottom price. The children’s toy wholesalers in China took advantage of receiving various orders from different global buyers to achieve low costs.

2. Where to Find Plush Toy Manufacturers in China?

Plush toys are one of the most popular export categories from China. The plush toy industry cluster is mainly located in China Factory in East China. Mainly in the three major cities of Yangzhou, Dongguan, and Qingdao.

a) The Feature of the Yangzhou Plush toy wholesale market:

There are 30% of the world’s stuffed animals made in Yangzhou. It’s the most significant Chinese stuffed animal manufacturing center. Plush toy importers can find lots of stuffed animal options here with various choices of fabric materials.

Because Yangzhou is close to Shaoxing City (in which, Keqiao Textile Market is the largest fabric material wholesale market in the world). You can find that the textile market with abundant fabric for making stuffed animals, and a lot of the USA college stores are buying the mascots from Yangzhou plush toy manufacturers.

b) The Feature of Dongguan Stuffed Animals Wholesale Market:

Similar to Shantou City, the development of the Dongguan Toy Industry is inseparable from Hong Kong’s prominent position in the international toy industry. Production involves plastic, electronics, wood, puzzles, plush, and other categories of high-end toys, and almost all exports to the global market.

Besides Shantou City, Dongguan is another critical wholesale China toy center in Guangdong Province (South of China)

The Dongguan stuffed animal vendors specialize in developing new fabric materials, enhancing the design in the plush toy world to lead the industry.

c) The Feature of Qingdao Plush Toy Wholesale Market:

Qingdao is in the North of China and belongs to Shandong Province. It is the city that aims to produce high-end stuffed animals and become the large toy retailer’s favorite OEM toy factory center for plush toys. The plush toy manufacturers in Qingdao desire to work for brands or customers who require a high-quality product instead of focusing on the price.

Where are the Most Wooden Toys Manufacturers in China?

The most professional wooden toy manufacturers are located in Yunhe, Lushui (Zhejiang Province).

Advantage 1: Wooden Toy Supply Stability

Most of the workers in the toy factory are local people, which means the suppliers can maintain a high level of labor stability. It helps the toy wholesale suppliers to meet their production schedules.

Advantage 2: Competitive Price of Wood Toys

The local market can supply different types of wood for the suppliers in Yunhe. The wooden toy wholesalers don’t need to purchase raw materials from other places, which helps them take advantage of the cost. Compared to the big city, the labor cost in Yunhe is the lowest, which makes the supplier’s price more competitive.

Advantage 3: Complete Certifications Testing Qualified

For wooden toy products, the most important certification is DOF (Declaration of Fumigation), it’s easier and more efficient to get the certification as an Industrial concentration over there.

Most wooden products like kids’ wooden kitchens, wooden kid sets, kids’ bricks, and Chinese wooden dolls are produced in Yunhe. Due to its manufacturing for the global reputable wooden toy distributors, the local toy manufacturers understand well the specific wooden toy testing protocols for global markets.

How to Import Toys from China? 8 Steps

Here are the steps when you buy wholesale toys from China. Following these steps when you intend to purchase made-in-China toys.

1. Find the high-potential toy product for the target market
2. Source the product through the online wholesale site or from the wholesale market
3. Check the sample effect
4. Approve the sample and issue the deposit
5. Hire an agent or third-party inspector to issue the inspection
6. Coordinate with the shipping forwarder to confirm the shipping method and tariffs
7. Down payment to the vendor and arrange the shipping
8. Check the shipping documents (B.L., Commercial Inv, and Packing List)

Import Toys: U.S. and EU Market Product Compliance

It’s critical to ensure that global importers purchase safe toys for the specific market. Understanding the local compliance for toys is essential when you import toys from China. Here are the examples for the U.S. and E.U. market:

U.S Market:

CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act): It refers to the lead content/phthalates test and the labeling test.

ASTM F963: This one is about mechanical/physical testing, flammability testing, and chemical testing.

It’s essential to check in your marketplace to find out if the testing result is a must before selling those toy products.

E.U. (European Union) Market:

All the toys exported to the E.U. market should comply with the toy safety directive (EN71 -1, 2, 3) and with a CE Mark on the product.

Always inform your vendor about the final selling market the tell them to share with you about the certificate they have. It saves your cost to conduct new testing, which costs a lot.

Toys Safe Prevention: Real Case Conducted by OwlSourcing

It’s essential to issue toy inspections in China and prevent these potential small parts issues when importing toys from China.

Tip: How can we prevent this problem and conduct toy quality control in China?

Currently, we always use Double Security/Multiple Toy Protection solutions to improve the item, which means double ways to keep the small parts coming from the issue.

Today, I would like to show you an example of how we were providing a toy protection solution for our customer’s case.

It’s a plastic rattle and is used as an accessory for plush toys, including some small plastic balls inside the transparent, which are sorted as small parts. According to the original design, the open parts were just ultrasonic welding.

Later on, we decided to make some changes to improve it, and there are the following steps:

Step 1: We plan to make a new mold for the transparent part with four pins on the connecting position to fix the two regions; this is the first security to keep the small plastic balls coming from the transparent cover.

Step 2: We inject a plastic ring around the pins and cover the connecting position, then it keeps the transparent ball still even if the pins are broken.

Step 3: we put the outer ring upon the item to ensure the inside components are safe.

Above is a simple case to show how to avoid the toy safety problem. Both the toy trading companies/sourcing agents and the toy factories should work closely with customers from worldwide to prevent the small parts issue. We should always protect the final users: the lovely kids.

You must make sure you can import the toys safely from China’s wholesale market without the potential quality issue.

Read more for similar articles,

• How to Import Toys from China: A Comprehensive Guide
• Importing Children’s Products from China: A Quality Guide
• How to Source Products From China: A Step-by-Step Guide
• Best-Selling Amazon Products You can Import from China
• Find China Factory: Top 10 Industrial Clusters Cities and Wholesale Markets in South of China

Final Thoughts

You need to know about the toy markets before importing toys from China. If you want to start a toy product sourcing then you can ask for support from OwlSourcing.

I hope you have a general idea about the China toy factories’ location’s distribution and how to source the toys from China, which can help you to understand where you can get the most competitive price. You can get a good toy factory through both sourcing online and offline (visiting the toy wholesale market/toy trade show or Alibaba).

Evaluation of your business is also a priority for you to do before approaching the toy wholesalers in China. You need to find out who’s most suitable for your business: whether they are toy factories, trading companies, or sourcing agents.

In the end, you should be responsible for the safety aspects of the toys, so a detailed review of the product is essential when starting your project in China.

Do you have any comments to share with me about the toys or kids’ products? Please leave a comment to us!