Before contacting anyone, write a one-page brief an Indian merchandiser can quote from: product description with materials and dimensions, target FOB price, order quantity, required certifications (GOTS, BSCI, LWG or CE depending on category), packaging, and destination market. Add reference photos or a tech pack for apparel.

Find your HS code early: it decides your import duty, and the 2026 picture varies by category. Most Indian goods enter the US at 18% since the February deal, furniture pays 25% under Section 232, and jewelry sits in its own regime. A quote without an HS code is a guess.

Decide your volume tier honestly. 25 to 300 pieces points you to small-batch specialists; container programs point to export houses. Factories quietly deprioritize orders that don’t match their tier, especially in peak season.

Marketplaces map the landscape fastest. IndiaMART lists millions of suppliers, TradeIndia and ExportersIndia add more. Treat listings as leads, never as vetted partners: factories, traders and brokers mix without distinction, and the best exporters often neglect their profiles because their order books are full.

Trade fairs compress months of scouting into days. The IHGF Delhi Fair, run by EPCH at Greater Noida, holds two 2026 editions, February 14-18 and October 13-17, with thousands of handicraft, furniture and decor exporters. Bharat Tex covers textiles at national scale, and the India Carpet Expo runs in Bhadohi each October.

Export promotion councils publish directories of registered exporters: EPCH for handicrafts, AEPC for apparel, CLE for leather, CEPC for carpets, GJEPC for gems and jewellery, FIEO across sectors. Membership proves an export track record exists; it says nothing about fit or quality.

Check the IEC first: a supplier without an Importer-Exporter Code on the DGFT registry cannot legally export at all. Thirty seconds, and it eliminates a surprising share of candidates.

Verify certificates by number with the issuing body, against the exact production address: GOTS and SMETA cover specific units, not companies. Cross-check export history on customs-data platforms like ImportYeti or Panjiva: a factory claiming 100 containers a month with ten shipments on file is a red flag.

Do the capacity arithmetic: headcount times realistic daily output should comfortably cover your order plus their existing book. And ask which processes leave the building; dyeing and plating usually do.

Send the one-page brief from step 1 and ask for three things: FOB pricing at two quantity levels, the real production lead time, and which unit would make your order. Serious exporters answer specifically; traders answer vaguely.

Watch the commercial red flags: quotes carrying Indian GST (exports are zero-rated, so tax on an export invoice signals inexperience or padding), pressure to pay into personal bank accounts, and refusal to name or show the factory.

Negotiate the payment rhythm rather than just the price. The norm is 30 to 50% advance with the purchase order and the balance against shipping documents, and inspection rights before the balance are worth more than another two percent off.

Budget real sampling time: one to three weeks for garments, three to eight for furniture, days for jewelry CAD renders. Many exporters credit sample costs against the first bulk order; ask.

Request production-line samples, not showroom pieces hand-finished by the senior craftsman. For prints and hand work, approve a strike-off or swatch on the actual fabric before bulk, and lock a reference board the line must match.

Evaluate against your spec in writing, measurements, materials, stitching or joinery, finish, and send corrections as an annotated list. How a factory handles sample feedback predicts how it will handle production problems.

A third-party pre-shipment inspection in India costs about $200 to $500 per visit through firms like QIMA or Bureau Veritas, and full social or quality audits are quoted per man-day. Against a five-figure order and a 30 to 50% deposit, it is the cheapest insurance in the trade.

India’s compliance bench is deep, the world’s largest count of GOTS-certified facilities plus dense SMETA, BSCI and SA8000 coverage, but paper is not the point: the audit confirms the certificate covers the building actually making your goods, that machines match claims, and that subcontracting is what they said it was.

If you cannot fly in, we run the audit for you; that is precisely the job of a sourcing agent.

Hold the three-checkpoint rhythm: prototype inspection before the line starts, an in-production check at 20 to 40% completion while defects are still correctable, and a pre-shipment review against AQL sampling before the balance payment.

Prepare the paperwork in parallel: GST-free commercial invoice, packing list, certificate of origin, plus product-specific documents, a Vriksh certificate for sheesham wood, phytosanitary and ISPM-15 for anything wooden, lab reports where your market requires them.

Ship from the right port: Nhava Sheva or Mundra for the north and west, Chennai for the southern belts. Plan 28 to 38 days to the US East Coast and 18 to 30 to Northern Europe under 2026 routing, and track landed cost per container, not unit FOB.