Skip to content

SHUGOU · 06 — TRUST INDEX METHODOLOGY

The 14-signal scoring system that ranks every Chinese supplier on Shugou, rebuilt every 6 hours.

A weighted composite score, not a star rating. Every signal is sourced from a verifiable registry, log, or shipment record — and every recompute is timestamped and auditable by your team.

Get a live sourcing demo Read the methodology

Used daily by 2,400+ sourcing teams · #1 Sourcing Intelligence Platform, 2024 CrossBorder Awards

  • 14weighted signals
  • 6hrefresh cadence
  • 1.4M+factories indexed
shugou · trust-index lookup 
$ shugou trust lookup --factory "Shenzhen Haili Plastics Co., Ltd."
→ registry_id       : 91440300MA5FX2B7XQ
→ cluster           : Shenzhen · Bao'an
→ last_refresh      : 2025-03-14T09:12:00Z (2h ago)
→ trust_score       : 87.4 / 100  [ A+ ]
→ signals_weighted  : 14 / 14 present
→ risk_flags        : none (last 90d)
→ on_time_ship_rate : 98.6% (rolling 12mo)
→ po_history        : 142 POs · $2.8M landed
_

02 — Overview

One score, 14 signals, zero black boxes.

The Trust Index is a weighted composite score on a 0–100 scale, recalculated every 6 hours across all 1.4M+ factories in Shugou's index. It is not a vanity star rating. Each supplier is bucketed into one of seven tiers — A+, A, A−, B+, B, C, D — based on the composite of 14 independently verifiable signals across Legal, Operational, Financial, Compliance, and Reputation categories.

Every signal carries a published weight, a source registry or log, and a minimum observation threshold. If a signal has fewer than the required observations, it is nulled and its weight is redistributed proportionally — so a supplier with sparse shipment history is not silently penalized, and a supplier with thin financial data is not silently inflated.

You can open any supplier, see exactly which signals moved the score, view the underlying registry record, and download the audit log of the last 365 days of recomputes. That is the methodology — auditable by your procurement and legal teams, not just trusted on our word.

03 — Signal Taxonomy

The 14 signals behind every Trust Index score.

Five categories. Weights published. Sources named. Null-handling rules documented. This is the section your procurement and legal teams will read first — and it is the section we are most willing to defend in front of either.

01–04 Legal Weight 30%

Legal standing & ownership

  • S01 · Business license validity — verified against the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) registry, daily re-crawl.
  • S02 · Legal representative continuity — detects changes in legal rep within the last 24 months; rapid changes are a risk-flag.
  • S03 · Registered capital adequacy — compared against industry-median capitalisation for the supplier's product category.
  • S04 · Litigation & enforcement record — cross-referenced against China Judgments Online and the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.
05–08 Operational Weight 30%

Operational track record

  • S05 · On-time shipment rate — rolling 12-month window, requires ≥10 PO observations to score.
  • S06 · Quality-pass rate on inbound QC — sourced from client-reported QC outcomes on the platform.
  • S07 · MOQ flexibility — measured against category benchmarks; rigid MOQs above 5× median are penalised.
  • S08 · Production capacity utilisation — inferred from public customs export records and capacity disclosures.
09–11 Financial Weight 20%

Financial stability

  • S09 · Years in operation — continuous SAMR registration; gaps in registration void the signal.
  • S10 · Tax compliance status — A/B/M/C/D tax rating pulled from the State Taxation Administration public lookup.
  • S11 · Customs export volume — rolling 12-month export USD value, benchmarked against category median.
12–14 Compliance & Reputation Weight 20%

Compliance, certifications & reputation

  • S12 · Certification coverage — ISO 9001, BSCI, Sedex, FDA, CE, FCC where applicable; verified against issuing-body registries.
  • S13 · Negative media & blacklist presence — daily crawl of 47 Chinese registries and 9 international watchlists.
  • S14 · Verified buyer feedback — aggregated from 2,400+ Shugou client teams; weighted by reviewer tenure on the platform.

04 — Refresh Pipeline

How the score is rebuilt every 6 hours.

Trust Index scores are not static snapshots. They are continuously re-evaluated evidence. Here is the pipeline that runs four times per day, every day, across 1.4M+ factories and 47 Chinese registries.

  1. T+00:00

    Registry re-crawl

    Daily crawls re-pull SAMR, the State Taxation Administration, China Judgments Online, customs export records, and 43 other registries. Detected within 6 hours of publication.

  2. T+01:30

    Signal recompute

    Each of the 14 signals is recalculated against the fresh registry data. Suppliers with insufficient observations retain their previous signal; weights redistribute proportionally.

  3. T+02:45

    Score diff & tier re-banding

    Composite scores update. Suppliers crossing a tier boundary are flagged for review. Score movement > 5 points triggers a client-side alert.

  4. T+04:00

    Audit log written

    Every recompute is timestamped, signed, and appended to a 365-day rolling audit log accessible to your team. Diff history is downloadable as CSV.

05 — Benchmarks

What the Trust Index has measured across 1.4M+ factories.

1.4M+

Verified Chinese factories indexed

Across Yiwu, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Suzhou industrial clusters.

98.6%

On-time shipment rate · A+ suppliers

Measured across the 2024 cohort among suppliers rated A+ on the Trust Index.

11d → 38min

Supplier vetting cycle reduction

Average cycle time, independently benchmarked across 320 client teams pre- and post-Shugou.

380K+

SKUs with 11 years of FOB pricing

The deepest price-memory dataset in cross-border sourcing intelligence.

06 — Comparison

Trust Index vs. self-reported supplier directories.

A side-by-side look at how the Trust Index compares with the supplier badges, paid listings, and self-reported directories most sourcing teams have been using for the last decade.

Capability Shugou Trust Index Alibaba Gold Supplier Self-reported directories Manual supplier audits
Number of underlying signals 14 weighted signals 1 (paid subscription badge) Variable; supplier self-attested 3–5 (analyst-dependent)
Refresh cadence Every 6 hours Static for paid term On supplier update Per audit engagement
Registry source coverage 47 Chinese registries + 9 international watchlists None None 2–4 registries (analyst-chosen)
Audit trail & diff history 365-day signed audit log, downloadable None None PDF report only
Risk-flag detection latency ≤ 6 hours Not detected Not detected At next audit (months)

Audit the Trust Index against your own supplier list.

See exactly which signals move the score for any Chinese factory you currently source from — and which tier they land in under our methodology.

Get a live sourcing demo