What Actually Changes When You Source Eyewear From China as a US Brand

CE and UKCA get you into the UK and EU — they don't get eyewear into the US. Getting a container held at port because of a tariff classification or a missing warning label is a preventable, expensive mistake. Here's what's specific to US import, separate from the product safety standards already covered for PC sunglasses and for kids' eyewear.

Our production timeline already covers sample and color-sample shipping via DHL/EMS/UPS/FedEx (3–5 working days, door to door). For a first bulk order to the US, there are three freight paths, plus the choice of who handles customs.

Sea, air, and express courier are all self-cleared by default — you (or your broker, on your behalf) are the importer of record and responsible for customs clearance on each of these three paths. Express couriers can arrange brokerage as an add-on for a fee, but it isn't automatic. The one path where you hand that off entirely is DDP, below.

A frame that fits well on the head shape a design was originally built around doesn't always fit well on a different market's average face. Brands that reuse an existing mold as-is sometimes hear the same feedback back from US customers: too tight at the temple, sliding down the nose, sitting too close to the brow. Here's the sizing system we work within, and the standard ranges available to adjust against.

Where These Measurements Sit on the Frame

End-piece detail — actual frame

Separate from how to evaluate a supplier, this is about the mechanics of actually sending money once you've chosen one — the operational questions that come up specifically for US-based businesses wiring funds to China.

• Wire transfer timing — we hold a local US bank account for receiving payments, so a domestic US wire typically clears in 1–2 business days rather than going through a slower international transfer.
• Currency & settlement — invoiced and settled at the actual exchange rate at time of payment, not a marked-up rate.

US sunglasses and reading-glasses demand follows a fairly predictable seasonal shape — spring restock, back-to-school, holiday gifting, summer sports/swim peak. But there's no single "start by this month" answer that holds across projects: the real runway depends on a few variables that shift the timeline more than the season does.

• New tooling vs. existing mold — a brand-new injection mold adds the full tooling sequence from our production process (roughly 25 days for tooling alone, plus mold testing and mold sampling on top). Reusing or lightly modifying an existing mold skips that entirely.
• Color & finish complexity — a solid, in-stock color ships faster than a custom gradient, layered acetate pattern, or a new plating finish, each of which usually adds review rounds before a color sample is approved.
• Style newness — a new silhouette needs full drawing revisions and sample rounds; an existing style getting a rebrand or recolor can often skip straight to sampling.

Shenzhen runs 13–16 hours ahead of the contiguous US depending on which time zone you're in (further still for Alaska and Hawaii) — closer to a full day than a same-day overlap. Left unmanaged, this turns every round of feedback into a 24-hour cycle, and it's more pronounced the further west your team is. To keep that from stalling a project, here's how we manage the rhythm:

• Day-to-day communication — mainly through WhatsApp and email. Message us anytime — we don't need both sides online at once, and you'll get a reply as soon as we see it.
• Response window — messages sent during 9:00–18:00 Beijing time get a reply within 4 hours; anything outside that window is picked up first thing the next morning.
• Sample confirmation — instead of trickling feedback back and forth, we package drawings, photos, measurements, and our own suggested changes into one complete confirmation set and send it all at once, so you only need to respond once, in one sitting.

How you're planning to sell changes what a sensible first order looks like — but the mechanics of MOQ itself are already covered in full in our MOQ guide. In short: testing multiple styles before committing to a full production run usually points toward our low-MOQ stock-frame program; a defined seasonal collection for wholesale or boutique accounts points toward full custom development.

Not one category — US partners span a genuine range of use cases, which means whatever you're building, it's likely we've solved an adjacent version of the same problem before.

Water & Sport Eyewear

Polarized, floating-frame sunglasses built for active, water-facing use.

Rimless & Minimal Frames

Precision-dependent construction where alignment and hinge tolerance carry the whole design.

Fashion & Lifestyle Collections

Seasonal acetate and metal collections built around a brand's existing identity.