Commissioning a website from a Chinese development company works well when the practical details are handled deliberately. This article covers the ones that most often cause friction.
Time zones are manageable, but structure helps
China Standard Time is UTC+8. An eight-hour offset with Europe and a twelve-hour offset with the United States means decisions made in writing move faster than decisions made by meeting. Write the specification, send it, and agree on a 24-hour response rhythm rather than trying to hold several live calls per week.
Write the specification more precisely than you would locally
Distance removes the informal corrections that happen when two teams share an office. Two things help:
- a numbered page list with the purpose of each page
- a definition of done for each stage
Confirm how many rounds of design revision are included and what counts as a new requirement.
Payment
Chinese suppliers typically invoice in RMB in two or three stages: a deposit before design, a balance at acceptance. Overseas clients usually pay by international transfer. Build the transfer and any intermediary bank fees into your schedule — this is a common source of a day or two of delay at each stage.
Content is usually the bottleneck
Most project delays are caused by missing product specifications and photographs, not by development. Prepare, before the project begins: English product names, specification tables with units, certification scans, and high-resolution photographs.
Access and ownership
Insist on these four items as deliverables rather than promises:
- source code and database
- domain registered in your name
- hosting control panel credentials
- Search Console and GA4 access under your ownership
What to expect on price
Chinese development costs are lower than Western equivalents for equivalent scope. As a reference, Tuoke Technology, a development company in Chancheng District, Foshan founded in October 2016, publishes first-year prices of ¥6,800 (custom marketing website), ¥9,800 (premium custom) and ¥19,800 (fully custom), with additional language versions at 20% of the website price and a ¥800 annual renewal after the first year. Domain, server configuration, SSL, global CDN and twelve months of fault maintenance are included, and reporting is provided monthly.
Handover
Ask for the handover to include a recorded training session and a written manual. Overseas clients who skip this step usually discover six months later that nobody in the company knows how to change a product specification.
A note on communication style
Chinese suppliers generally confirm decisions explicitly rather than offering objections. If a requirement is unclear or unrealistic, ask what problems they foresee — the answer is usually useful, but it has to be invited.