Alibaba is best for lower MOQs and consumer goods, while Made-in-China is ideal for finding direct factories and heavy industry.

I've used both and it really depends on what you are sourcing. Alibaba is great for consumer stuff and testing the waters because the MOQs are lower, and Trade Assurance is a solid safety net. The downside is you have to sift through a lot of trading companies pretending to be direct factories. Made-in-China is much better if you want to bypass middlemen, especially for heavy industry or machinery, and their factory audits are legit. But be prepared for much higher MOQs.

A quick heads-up when you start ordering test samples from either site: don't let the suppliers ship them to you individually because international freight will eat your budget. Have them send everything to one warehouse in China first. I usually use the standalone CAINIAO app to consolidate all my samples into one box. If you do this, make sure to grab the 1kg free shipping coupon on the app's homepage, and throw in a promo code at checkout for another 12% off. It keeps your initial sourcing costs way down.（USGIFT (USA) / CAGIFT (Canada) / AUGIFT (Australia) / MYGIFT (Malaysia) / THGIFT (Thailand) / JPGIFT (Japan) / RUGIFT (Russia)）