Shanghai for business buyers

Shanghai is not a wholesale-market city in the way Guangzhou or Yiwu are. You do not fly to Shanghai to walk floors of cheap stalls. You fly there for higher-end products, for machinery and technical goods, and above all for the big international trade fairs. For a certain kind of Nigerian buyer, the one moving upmarket or sourcing equipment, Shanghai is exactly the right airport.

What Shanghai is for

Shanghai is China's financial and commercial capital, and its sourcing strengths follow from that. It suits:

• Higher-end and branded-quality goods, where you are buying on specification and finish rather than on the lowest possible price.
• Machinery, equipment and technical products, often sold through company offices and fairs rather than market stalls.
• Trade fairs, the real reason many serious buyers come.

If your business is volume general merchandise, your money usually goes further in the Guangdong and Zhejiang clusters mapped in our China manufacturing clusters by product guide. Shanghai is for the buyer trading up.

The trade fairs

Shanghai hosts some of China's largest exhibitions across two main venues: the Shanghai New International Expo Centre in Pudong, and the very large National Exhibition and Convention Centre near Hongqiao on the western side of the city. Across the year these halls run major fairs for homeware, appliances, kitchenware, machinery, packaging and much more.

A trade fair is a different way to source than a market. In one hall you meet hundreds of manufacturers, see their best products, collect cards and compare seriously, without the stall-by-stall grind. The trade-off is that fairs are time-bound, so you plan the trip around the date.

A market rewards the buyer who shows up any day. A fair rewards the buyer who books around the calendar. Check the dates before the flights.

Getting around

Shanghai is large but well connected. The metro is extensive, clean and the simplest way to move between the city and the expo centres, which both sit on the network. Have your apps sorted before you land; our apps you need in China guide covers maps, translation, payments and ride-hailing. Allow real travel time, because the expo halls are far apart and the city is big.

A Shanghai fair-trip checklist

1. Lock the fair date first, then book flights and a hotel near that venue, not just anywhere central.
2. Sort the visa early. See the China visa from Nigeria guide; business-fair travel has its own rhythm.
3. Pre-register for the fair online where you can, to skip queues and get the floor plan in advance.
4. Plan the hall by category so you are not crossing a giant venue back and forth.
5. Carry plenty of cards and a fast way to log leads, because you will meet more suppliers in a day than you can remember.

Higher-end means higher diligence

Trading up does not remove risk, it changes it. On machinery and technical goods the danger is the wrong specification, not a fake; on premium goods it is paying for a finish you do not actually receive. Confirm specs in writing, get samples or factory references, and apply the same discipline our negotiating with Chinese suppliers guide describes, where the goal is a price that survives the reorder.

Paying Shanghai suppliers

Whether you meet a supplier at a Shanghai fair or in their office, payment is in RMB, often a deposit and balance, and the sums on machinery and premium goods are larger than a box of small commodities. That is precisely when a locked rate and a clean receipt earn their keep. When your deposit or balance falls due, you can make a request to settle the supplier in RMB from Naira, with a record for each payment. Come for the fairs, buy on specification, and Shanghai opens the door to the upper end of your market.