Sourcing from Vietnam: A Practical Guide for Importers

Sourcing from Vietnam works well for garments, footwear, furniture and electronics assembly, as long as you verify the factory before paying a deposit and inspect the goods before you release the balance. Most quality problems with Vietnamese suppliers have predictable causes: materials imported from China, hidden subcontracting, moisture damage and rushed production around Tet. This guide covers where products are made, how to check a supplier, what to put in your specifications and which inspections to book at each stage.

Where Vietnam's Factories Are and What They Make

Vietnam's manufacturing base splits into three regions, and the product you buy largely decides where your supplier will be. The north, around Hanoi and the port of Hai Phong, is the centre for electronics and components. Samsung's phone plants in Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen drew in a large network of suppliers making printed circuit boards, plastic housings and metal parts. The south, around Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong and Dong Nai, holds most of the furniture, footwear and garment factories. Central Vietnam is smaller, with garment plants around Da Nang and outdoor wood furniture makers around Quy Nhon.

Vietnam merged many of its provinces in 2025, so the address on a supplier's documents may show a different province from the one they mention on the phone. Binh Duong, for example, is now part of Ho Chi Minh City. When you book a factory visit, give the inspection company the full street address and the name of the industrial park, not just the province.

Common Quality Problems When Sourcing from Vietnam

The defects found in Vietnamese factories are largely the same as anywhere else in Asia: wrong measurements, poor finishing, damaged packaging. A handful of causes come up more often in Vietnam, though, and each one has a specific check that catches it.

Moisture, Mould and Humidity Damage

Humidity damage is one of the most common Vietnam-specific problems in wood, rattan, leather and cotton goods. The north has a damp spring, roughly February to April, when walls and floors stay wet for days. The south has a rainy season from about May to October. Wood packed with a moisture content above about 12% will shrink and crack once it dries out in a heated home in Europe or North America, and damp goods sealed in polybags can grow mould during a sea voyage of several weeks. An inspector should take moisture meter readings on several pieces from different cartons, look for white or green spots on leather and in seams, smell opened cartons for mustiness and confirm that silica gel sachets are packed as specified.

Materials Imported from China

Vietnam still imports a large share of its fabric, trims, zippers, electronic components and hardware from China. Your lead time therefore depends on two countries, and when a material delivery is late, some factories substitute a cheaper or locally available alternative without telling you. Typical examples are a polyester blend replacing a 100% cotton lining, a thinner zinc alloy in hinges or an unbranded capacitor in place of the one on your bill of materials. A pre-production check of incoming materials, comparing mill labels, component markings and material invoices against your approved list, catches most substitutions before they are sewn or soldered into the product.

Hidden Subcontracting

Busy factories pass parts of an order to smaller workshops, most often sewing, sanding and painting, or packing. The workshop has never been audited, and quality drops. Signs an inspector can spot during production: your style is not running on any line in the factory, finished goods arrive from outside already packed, or the work-in-progress quantity is far lower than the production schedule implies.

Labour Turnover After Tet

Many workers travel home for Tet, the Lunar New Year, and a share of them either do not come back or move to another factory. For several weeks afterwards, lines run with new operators. Seam slippage, uneven stitching and finishing marks tend to rise during this period, so orders produced in February and March deserve a during production inspection even from suppliers with a clean record.

Packaging and Labelling Errors

Packaging errors are cheap to prevent at the factory and expensive to fix at destination. The usual faults are wrong or unreadable barcodes, missing shipping marks, single-wall cartons where double-wall was specified, missing warning labels and, for Amazon sellers, FNSKU labels placed on the wrong surface or covering another barcode.

How to Vet a Vietnamese Supplier Before You Pay a Deposit

Vetting a Vietnamese supplier starts with paperwork you can check from your desk and ends with someone standing on the factory floor. Work through these steps before you send money:

1. Ask for the Enterprise Registration Certificate. It shows the company's legal name, address, legal representative and a 10-digit enterprise code that also serves as the tax code. You can look the code up on the National Business Registration Portal.
2. Match the names. The legal name on the certificate, the proforma invoice and the bank beneficiary should be identical. A request to pay a personal account or a company in another country needs a written explanation you can verify.
3. Read the registered business lines. A manufacturer will list production activities for your product category. A company registered only for trading or wholesale is a trading company, whatever its website says.
4. For foreign-owned factories, ask for the Investment Registration Certificate as well. Many Vietnamese factories belong to Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean or other foreign groups, and material decisions are often made by the parent company abroad.
5. Ask for export references in your product category. A redacted bill of lading or a customer reference for a similar product tells you more than a catalogue.
6. Book an on-site audit before the first order.

An on-site audit confirms what the documents cannot. A detail factory audit counts the machines and compares them with the claimed capacity, checks worker numbers on the lines, looks for incoming material inspection and final QC records, checks that measuring tools are calibrated and confirms whether samples are made in-house. If you need to know whether a factory can handle a specific volume and lead time, our guide to a supplier capability audit explains how capacity is checked line by line.

The audit also tells you whether the product is really made in Vietnam. That matters if you rely on Vietnamese origin for tariffs. US Customs and Border Protection treats goods as originating where the substantial transformation took place, so a supplier that only repacks or relabels finished goods made elsewhere is a customs risk as well as a quality one.

Writing Specifications a Vietnamese Factory Can Work From

Specifications for a Vietnamese factory should be written as numbers and backed by a physical sample. Factories that are newer to export work tend to follow exactly what is written and sampled, and they rarely fill gaps on their own initiative. A useful specification sheet covers:

• Dimensions with tolerances, for example a table top of 1600 × 900 mm ±3 mm, or a garment chest width of 56 cm ±1 cm.
• Colours by Pantone or RAL code, with a physical colour standard and the light source for comparison, usually D65 daylight.
• Materials: wood species, fabric composition and weight (for example 180 g/m² ±5%), coating or plating thickness.
• Packaging: carton grade, units per carton, label positions, barcode type and shipping mark layout.
• A defect list that classifies each defect as critical, major or minor, with photos.

Back the written spec with a golden sample: an approved production sample, signed and sealed. Keep at least three, one at the factory, one with you and one available to the inspector. Have the key requirements translated into Vietnamese as well. Line supervisors often read little English, and instructions passed verbally from the factory office lose detail on the way to the line.

Which Inspections to Book When Sourcing from Vietnam

Inspections for Vietnamese orders follow the same stages as anywhere in Asia. Which ones you need depends on how well you know the supplier and how much the order is worth.

• Pre-production inspection: before production starts. Checks materials and components against your spec. Worth booking whenever materials come from China or the supplier is new.
• During production inspection: once finished units come off the line, usually at 20% to 50% of the order. Catches systematic defects while there is still time to correct them, and confirms the order is being made in the factory you audited.
• Pre-shipment inspection: when 100% of the goods are produced and at least 80% are packed. Random sampling to AQL, measurements, function tests, packing and labels.
• Container loading inspection: during loading. Checks container condition, counts cartons, confirms the right goods go in and records the seal number.

Pass or fail at the pre-shipment stage is normally decided with ISO 2859-1 sampling, which uses the same tables as ANSI/ASQ Z1.4. The usual consumer goods setting is zero critical defects, AQL 2.5 for major defects and AQL 4.0 for minor defects at general inspection level II. For an order of 5,000 pieces (lot size range 3,201 to 10,000, code letter L), the numbers look like this:

For a new Vietnamese supplier, tightening major defects to AQL 1.5 for the first few orders is reasonable. You can check sample sizes and acceptance numbers for your own lot size with our AQL calculator.

The Inspection Company has inspected in Vietnam since 2007, with local inspectors in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang and Hai Phong, so a booking usually reaches the factory within 24 to 48 hours. Management is European and inspections follow German QC standards. We take no commission from suppliers, the inspector's check-in and check-out at the factory are geo-tracked, and the photo-backed report with a pass, fail or pending result reaches you within 24 hours of the inspection. Coverage details are on our Vietnam inspection page.

Product Checks for Vietnam's Main Export Goods

Furniture

Furniture inspections in Vietnam focus on wood moisture, finish and assembly. The usual checks are:

• Moisture content readings on several pieces, typically against a target of 8% to 12% for indoor furniture.
• Finish compared with the approved colour panel for shade, gloss, runs, orange peel and sanding marks.
• Joints checked for gaps, cracks and glue squeeze-out.
• A full assembly test using only the hardware and instructions packed in the carton.
• A stability check on chairs, tables and cabinets, and a carton drop test to the procedure in your spec.

Outdoor acacia and eucalyptus pieces should also be checked for open cracks at the end grain and for oil finishes that have not cured before packing, which leave sticky surfaces and stained cartons. Our furniture inspection services page lists the full checklist.

Garments and Textiles

Garment checks start with measurements against the size chart on a set number of pieces per size. Inspectors also look for shade differences between panels of the same garment, open or skipped seams, puckering, uneven hems, loose threads and stains. Trims are checked for function: zippers are run over their full length several times, and snaps and buttons are pulled. Care labels must match the fibre content and the rules of the destination market, and children's garments usually need needle detection on every piece. Colour fastness and shrinkage need laboratory testing, which you can arrange through sample testing before bulk production.

Footwear

Footwear defects from southern Vietnam's factories are mostly about bonding and appearance. Inspectors flex each sampled pair and pull at the toe and heel to check sole adhesion, look for glue overspill on the upper, compare left and right shoes for colour and height, confirm the size marking matches the actual size, and open shoeboxes to check for mould and for silica gel where required. Visible sole separation is normally classed as a major defect.

Electronics and Small Appliances

Electronics inspections in northern Vietnam need testing equipment, because a visual check will not find an earth fault. The inspector should run a function test on every sampled unit, a hi-pot (dielectric strength) test and an earth continuity test on mains-powered products, check rating labels and plugs for the destination market, and look at PCB assemblies for corrosion or flux residue, which is more likely in the humid months. Products with lithium batteries need a UN38.3 test summary before they can be shipped.

Tet, Lead Times and Shipping from Vietnamese Ports

Tet falls between late January and mid-February. The official public holiday lasts about a week, but many factories close for two to three weeks and need longer to return to full output. Chinese New Year falls at the same time, so materials from China stop moving too. Do not plan a pre-shipment inspection for the last days before Tet, when factories rush to finish and pack, and expect the first weeks after the holiday to run below normal output.

Shipping routes depend on the region. In the south, Cat Lai in Ho Chi Minh City handles much of the container traffic and is often congested, while the Cai Mep-Thi Vai deep-water terminals take larger ships with direct services to Europe and North America. The north ships through Hai Phong, including the Lach Huyen deep-water port. Wooden pallets and crates must meet ISPM 15, meaning heat-treated and stamped, for most destination markets. At loading, the container should be checked for holes, a wet floor and strong odours, and for wood or cotton products desiccant bags or poles should be fitted before the doors are closed.

Payment Terms That Keep Leverage on Your Side

Payment terms with Vietnamese suppliers are commonly a 30% deposit and a 70% balance before shipment, often against a copy of the bill of lading. The balance is your leverage. Write the inspection into the purchase contract: your right to inspect at any stage, the AQL levels that apply, and that a failed inspection means rework and re-inspection at the supplier's cost. Release the balance only after a passed pre-shipment inspection report. On FOB terms you also control the booking with your forwarder, so goods do not leave before you have seen the report.

For repeat orders, track inspection results per supplier, including defect rates, failed inspections and late deliveries. Our guide to a supplier performance audit shows how to turn that data into corrective actions the factory has to follow.

If you are planning an order with a Vietnamese supplier, send us the factory address, product details and order quantity through our quotation form, and we will suggest which audit or inspections fit the order and quote a fixed man-day price.