Buy electronic components direct from China: who gets the markup

You can buy electronic components direct from China, and for many maker parts the price on a domestic Chinese marketplace is a fraction of what a European shop asks. You will not get the factory price, though, and you will not get the saving for free. Every step you skip is replaced by a cost of your own: domestic freight, an agent, international shipping, import charges, and your time.

This post follows a part from the factory to your desk, shows what each hand in the chain adds and charges for, and then does the sum honestly for buying closer to the source. It also covers the cases where the local reseller is simply the better buy, because there are plenty.

The chain of hands between factory and desk

Take a common part, say a TP4056 charger module or a CH340 USB-serial board. Before it reaches a European maker it has usually passed through some or all of these hands. The exact chain differs per product, and nobody publishes a standard margin for each step, so there are no percentages here. What follows is the role each step plays.

The factory

The factory makes the board or the component. Some make their own designs, others assemble open reference designs in large batches. Factories generally sell by the carton or the reel and prefer a few big customers to many small ones. A maker asking for five pieces is not their customer, which is why the next hands exist.

The trading company

Plenty of the "factories" you find online are actually trading companies. They hold relationships with several factories, speak the buyer's language, handle paperwork and quality complaints, and combine small orders into factory-sized ones. They charge for that: their margin sits between what the factory asks and what the next buyer pays. Their value is real when you need a custom spec or a mixed order of many items. For a catalogue part that already exists in volume, it is mostly a pass-through.

The wholesaler

Wholesalers and market stalls buy by the thousand and sell by the box, bag or reel. Chinese electronics wholesale is concentrated in big markets and in online storefronts on 1688, which is Alibaba's domestic wholesale platform. Here you find the tiered price lists: the more you buy, the lower the unit price. The wholesaler adds storage, stock availability and the willingness to split a carton. The price at the lowest quantity tier is the one a maker usually pays.

The export marketplace seller

This is the seller you meet on AliExpress and similar export-facing sites. They buy from wholesalers or manufacturers, list in English, accept international cards, ship single units abroad and handle customer messages in your language. They carry the stock risk, run the shop, deal with returns disputes and take on the work of shipping one small parcel at a time. That convenience is what you pay their markup for.

The European reseller

The last hand holds stock in the EU, pays the import duty and VAT on bulk shipments, writes the product pages and answers support questions. They accept returns under local consumer law, honour a warranty, test and curate what they sell, and ship in a day or two. They also carry rent, staff, payment fees, VAT registration and the cost of stock that does not sell. All of that ends up in the price, and for the buyer it also ends up as a service.

What each step genuinely adds

It is tempting to describe the chain as a row of parasites, and it is not. Each hand does a job, and the job costs money. The useful question is whether you need that job done.

Buying closer to the source

Buying closer means skipping the export-facing layers and ordering from the same domestic Chinese marketplaces that wholesalers and local buyers use: Taobao for retail-style listings and 1688 for wholesale. Both are written in Chinese, priced in yuan and aimed at domestic delivery. Most sellers there will not ship to Europe or take a European card, so in practice you order through a shopping agent. The agent buys on your behalf, receives the goods in China and forwards them abroad.

PartLark exists to take the hardest part of this off your hands, which is finding the right listing. It is a free catalogue of maker parts matched to verified Taobao and 1688 listings, and it shows the marketplace prices in CNY as listed, with no markup added. The matching is automatic and can be wrong, so always check the listing and the variant before you order. If you pick Superbuy as your agent through PartLark, note that PartLark's Superbuy links are affiliate links, and the catalogue is the same whichever agent you use.

The costs you take on yourself

This is where "direct from China" stops sounding like free money. You pay these yourself, and the first four are quantifiable before you order.

Domestic freight. Most sellers charge to send the goods from their warehouse to your agent's warehouse. Some include it, some charge a small flat fee, some charge by weight and distance. For a low-priced part, this can be a large share of the goods price.

Agent fees. Agents differ. Some charge nothing at the purchase step on Taobao and 1688 and charge for extras such as photos or at shipping time, others take a percentage. Read the current fee page before paying, because these change.

International shipping. Usually the largest line for a small order. It is priced by weight with minimum charges, sometimes by volumetric weight, and it varies by route. A parcel of ten light modules costs far less per item than a parcel of one.

Import charges. Since the €150 customs duty exemption ended on 1 July 2026, a temporary €3 customs duty per item, counted per tariff classification, has applied to low-value parcels entering the EU. A further €2 handling fee per item is scheduled to apply from 1 November 2026, so it is not yet in force as of this post, but plan for it. VAT is due on imports as well: the €22 VAT exemption ended in 2021, and IOSS, the import one-stop shop, covers consignments up to €150. The landed cost guide covers the structure. Declare the true value on every parcel. Splitting a parcel or declaring less to avoid charges is not a saving, it is a way to get the parcel stopped.

Time and risk. These do not show on an invoice. Ordering through an agent takes a few days for the sellers to ship to the warehouse, then waiting for consolidation, then international transit that varies by route. If something is wrong, there is no European shop to return it to. You are dealing with a Chinese seller through an agent, in a language you may not read, and a refund is not guaranteed. Free storage windows are limited, so a slow seller can run into storage fees. Items are sometimes out of stock after you pay. Quality varies between sellers, and generic clones are common on some parts, so check the chip named in the listing and ask for warehouse photos before an order that matters.

An illustrative comparison

These numbers are made up and rounded to show the method. They are not real prices or rates. Say a module costs 8 yuan on a domestic listing, and a European reseller sells the same sort of module for the equivalent of 40 yuan (roughly five times as much, an invented ratio). Buying one piece through an agent, with, say, 3 yuan domestic freight, a share of the agent's fees, and international shipping that has a fixed minimum, the unit price lands close to or above the reseller's price, because the fixed costs fall on a single item. Buy twenty of them in one parcel and the fixed costs spread out so that each module carries only a small slice of shipping and handling. The saving then becomes real, but note that it grew with quantity, not from the listing price alone.

The same arithmetic runs the other way for the per-item charges. Because the €3 duty applies per item, counted per tariff line, and the €2 handling fee is also per item, cheap parts bear a heavier relative load than expensive ones. A 0.50 yuan resistor is a bad candidate for importing as a lone item. A bag of a hundred is a different matter, as one line of goods. How that counts depends on how the parcel is declared, so check the current Commission guidance and your agent's route notes rather than relying on a rule of thumb.

Tip: Before ordering, list what you need for your next two or three projects and buy it as one parcel. Each fixed cost you pay once is a fixed cost you did not pay five times.

Comparing the routes

When the local reseller is the better buy

Paying the reseller is often the right call, and it does not mean you were fooled.

• You need it this week. A project with a deadline, or a part that blew up the evening before a demo, is a job for local stock. Agent routes take weeks, and nobody can promise a delivery time.
• A single cheap item. If the part costs a euro or two, the fixed costs of an agent order and the per-item import charges will usually swamp any saving. Add it to a bigger order later, or buy it locally.
• Warranty and returns. In the EU you have consumer rights against a European seller. Against a Chinese seller through an agent, you have the agent's rules and the seller's goodwill. For anything where a dead-on-arrival unit would be a real problem, that difference is worth money.
• Genuine branded boards. If you need the original board from a designer or manufacturer, for the support, the documentation, the licensing or the guarantee of the real part, buy from the maker or an authorised European distributor. Cheap domestic listings are usually generic equivalents, and some are look-alikes.
• Batteries. Lithium cells and modules with a built-in battery are dangerous goods for air freight, so many shipping lines refuse them and the ones that accept them cost more. Buying locally avoids the problem entirely.
• You are unsure which variant you need. A reseller can answer a question, swap a wrong item and tell you which one works with your setup. An agent warehouse cannot.

The honest rule is this: buy closer to the source for volume, for a stockpile of common parts, and for things you can afford to lose. Buy locally for urgency, assurance and anything where a failure costs more than the saving.

FAQ

Can I really buy electronic components direct from China?

Yes, through a shopping agent. Most Chinese domestic marketplaces such as Taobao and 1688 do not ship to Europe or accept European payment, so the agent places the order, receives the goods in China and forwards them. You pay the marketplace price, domestic freight, agent fees, international shipping and EU import charges.

How much cheaper is it than a European shop?

It varies by part, quantity and route, and we will not quote a percentage because there is no honest general figure. Compare a full quote for your own basket against the local price: goods, domestic freight, agent fees, international shipping, duty, handling and VAT. The saving tends to grow with the number of items in the parcel.

Is the factory price available to hobbyists?

Generally not. Factories sell in volume and trading companies add a margin. The lowest price a hobbyist can usually reach is a 1688 wholesaler's low-quantity tier, or a Taobao listing, and even that is not the factory price.

Do the new EU charges kill the savings?

They reduce them, mostly on very cheap single items. A temporary €3 duty per item (per tariff classification) has applied since 1 July 2026, a €2 handling fee per item is scheduled from 1 November 2026, and VAT applies as well. For larger, higher-value parcels the saving can remain meaningful. Check the European Commission's guidance and your agent's route notes for how your specific parcel is treated.

Plan your haul

Browse the catalogue for the part you need, compare the matched listings and variants, and add them to your haul, which shows the goods subtotal only. Domestic freight, agent fees, international shipping and import charges come on top, so work the full sum before you decide whether to order from China or buy locally. How it works explains the matching, and why use PartLark explains what the site does and does not do.