Reviewed 30 September 2026 · quarterly cycle
How do I verify a provider before placing a first order?
Four checks, none of which involve reading reviews: published policy, payment destination, warehouse location, and the line list they will actually book.
The evidence
Published policy is the first check because it is the cheapest to verify and the hardest to fake. A provider that publishes a storage window, a service list and a restricted-goods scope has committed to something checkable. A provider whose terms exist only as marketing copy has committed to nothing, and the absence is informative.
Payment destination is the second and the most important. The account that receives funds is the entity you have a relationship with, regardless of the brand on the page. Where the payment destination cannot be identified, the brand is decoration, and a first order is a test of an unknown party rather than of a known one.
Warehouse location and line list are the third and fourth, and they answer different questions. The warehouse location determines which domestic legs are short and which are long. The line list determines what you can actually send, because a line that will not accept your category is a restriction regardless of how good its rate looks. Both are published by providers that intend to be compared.
When this does not apply
Where a provider is new and genuinely has not published terms yet, the honest assessment is that you are taking an unquantified risk rather than that the provider is bad. Sizing the first order to what you can afford to lose is the appropriate response to that, not a leap of faith at full value.