How do I find a company in China that will sell me gun lighters
on a wholesale basis?  I have imported these items from Korea and I know
the city in China where they come from, but I cannot find the company itself.
The city or province is Wenzhou and the company name is Wenzhou Swordfish
Lighter Factory.

Thanks for your question,

Doing business in China is still a bit of a challenge, even finding
something simple as an address or phone number might be near to
impossible.

You are already quite far in the right direction. Wenzhou is a port
city in the prosperous province Zhejiang, south of my home town
Shanghai. It is a famous place for private companies where in the past
many pirated products were produced. They are a famous production
place for the kind of products you are looking for.

There are a few rather good search engines to find companies in China,
when you do a broader search. Global sources from Hong Kong is doing a
rather good job and Alibaba.com from Hangzhou (the capital of Zhejiang
province) is a good second best.

I have looked at both to locate your specific Wenzhou Swordfish
Lighter Factory but that returned no hits. Since you want lighters and
do not have to rely on one specific manufacturer, I would also use
both other resources for further searches.
The search does come up with a factory called Swordfish in Jiangsu
province, but in China companies are not very original in giving
themselves names, so this is most likely a fully different enterprise.

Each Chinese city has a rather good phone directory service called
'114'. When you call them in Wenzhou (+86 577 114) they might be able
to help you out. Here in Shanghai the service is also in English, but
it might be a problem in Wenzhou. In any case it would be good if you
could find the Chinese name of the company too, even when they offer a
service in English.

In addition, there are a number of web sites in English providing
information about Wenzhou itself. When we cut away the rather useless
descriptions, you might have a look at the made-in-wenzhou site. They
offer access to the government agency in charge of foreign trade.
You can use their email address wztec@ciet.cn.net, but best is to call
them directly: they will speak English, although maybe not very well.
The phone number on the site forgot to include their area code (577),
so their numbers should be 0086-577-8333349 8249310 8333592.

When all these things do not work, there is only one solution in
China. Call a friend. In emergencies you can write my friend Allan
Yang from Qingtian (a neighboring city from
Wenzhou)Yang@broadcontact.com
He is now involved in a IT-project in Zhejiang province, but very much
at home in the region.

Good luck!

Links:
A Hong Kong based sourcing web site
www.globalsources.com

A Hangzhou based sourcing web site
www.alibaba.com

Wenzhou economic information
http://www.chinamarket.com.cn/C/invest/area/zhejiang/wenzhou/gaikuange.htm


Google search term:
Wenzhou

OK...I think I found one of the guns you speak of, now lets see if
that Chinese trademark attachement on the page helps.

http://www.allnightpress.com/main/monologue/199902/gun.htm

and another page with a gun lighter:
http://www.buckbeannovelties.com/swordfishbutane.html

and another:
http://www.zodiacgift.com/cgibin/item.cgi?rp-swordfish-laser-l

perhaps one of the latter links would be willing to divulge their
source.


Although they don't have a web portal, they offer a trademark search
at this location.

http://www.sptl.com.cn/English/trademark/tmsearch.htm

You could ask them to check on the revolver's trademark (which I
believe is this) SWORDFISH LIGHTER WZ-020-12 P.R of China Registred
Trademark.


Wenzhou is home to 80% of the world's metal cased lighter
manufacturers.

perhaps this is your dealer?
http://www.xintailighter.com/gun.htm

Hope this helps,
Mother911-ga