There are three common ways to reach a supplier: search for it yourself, use an online marketplace, or hire an agent to do the looking. Each shows you a different slice of the market and hides a different set of facts. This page compares the routes by what you see before first contact, who stands between you and the company, and what has to be checked on your side, so you can see where a desk-research report fits.
Direct sourcing gives you the widest view and costs you the most effort per candidate. A marketplace gives you a ready-made list with sellers of mixed type and a platform's own profile of each. An agent gives you a short list and a person to handle the work, at the price of seeing the market through the agent's choices. None of these is wrong. The point is to know which facts the route leaves unchecked, and to have those checked from sources independent of the route you used.
A research report can sit beside any of the three: it screens the candidates the route produced and records what public sources do or do not confirm.
A reading of the routes in general. Terms vary between platforms and between agents, so ask what applies to the one you use.
| Question | Direct sourcing | Marketplace | Sourcing agent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where candidates come from | Your own search, trade fairs, referrals, public registers | Listings the platform hosts | The agent's own contacts and searches |
| What you see first | What the company publishes about itself | A platform profile built from the seller's entries and platform signals | A summary prepared by the agent |
| Who sits between you and the company | Nobody | The platform, and a seller that may be a trading company presenting itself as the maker | The agent. How the agent is paid is for you to establish |
| What is easy to miss | Companies you did not think to search for | Whether the seller is a factory or a trader | Why these candidates were chosen and others left out |
| Checks that remain yours | Everything, unless you commission them | Registry and licence match, since badges are the platform's own | Independent confirmation of what the agent reports |
| How a research report helps | Structures and compares what you collected | Checks the listing against records outside the platform | Reads the agent's candidates against records outside the agent's summary |
The report does not rank the three routes and does not recommend a platform or an agent.
Direct sourcing plus a screened shortlist gives the most visibility, at the cost of time spent on your own side.
A marketplace can show breadth, and the report then tests the few listings that survive your own filter.
The list is treated as client-provided and read against records outside the route that produced it.
Research reports what can be established from public and provided sources. It is not a guarantee about a counterparty's future conduct and not legal advice.
This page does not rank the routes. It shows what each one leaves unchecked.
It is recorded as a platform statement. Where a record outside the platform can confirm or contradict it, the report says which.
No. LATYNEX Research does not negotiate, order or pay. The Research Desk or Sourcing Agent page sets the difference out.
No obligation. We read your request and reply with a straight answer.
Tell us what you need to find out and by when. We confirm scope before any work starts.
Request research